Episode 42: Our 10-Year Plan for Regenerative Coffee Farming - A Conversation with Maren Myhre Gullvik

The biggest project we are working on right now is what we call our "TW Biological Project". Our goal is that all the farms we buy from in 10 years will be practising regenerative and biological farming. We are currently testing this on six farms in latin-America, where we are comparing biological farming techniquea to how they are currently working (conventional farming) on two similar areas of each farm to see what the results will be within three years. We are discussing the results we expect and how we plan to work to reach our goal. 

In this episode, I sit down with Maren from our team. Maren has worked with us since 2021, having previously worked as both a barista and a coffee roaster, before moving to Italy to complete her Master's degree in local development. She has now finished her degree and is currently our project coordinator for sustainability. She is leading the development of our sustainability strategy and works closely with me and the farmers we buy from.

We talk about regenerative agriculture, what it means and why it could be the future of coffee. We discuss topics such as biological farming vs conventional farming, sustainable consumption, greenwashing, certifications in coffee, climate change effects , and labour on coffee farms.

One of Maren's main focus right now is EUDR (European Union Deforestation Regulation). The main objective of the regulation is to uncover potential cases of deforestation related to coffee production, and end the supply of products on the European market that has contributed to deforestation. We need to map and have an overview of the farms we work with to verify whether or not deforestation or forest degradation has taken place, which is a lot of work – even for us, as we only work with a handful of coffee farmers.

Music by my uncle Jens Wendelboe.