Regenerative Coffee Doesn’t Need Expensive Certifications | Week 39, 2025

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Regenerative Coffee Doesn’t Need Expensive Certifications

“Regenerative” is making its way into coffee. With this comes new opportunities for predatory "certifiers" to create new seals and logos for us to buy, promising to sort the good from the bad and guide consumers to the brands that are doing the right thing.

We’ve seen this movie before!

It doesn't end well, and it doesn't create resilient coffee farms.

And while labels undoubtedly help consumers may help, but too often they siphon money and power away from farmers while delivering mixed results to roasters and consumers. Instead of launching another expensive logo, let’s take a moment to pause and understand the economics of what's going on so that we avoid building new pay‑to‑play pyramid schemes.

Why Certifications Risk Harm

  • Cost & power asymmetry: Third‑party certification concentrates gatekeeping with auditors and issuing bodies. Smallholder farmers usually pay fees upfront, while the real marketing value is seen downstream.

  • Practice checklists ≠ ecological outcomes: Many schemes verify practices (e.g., cover crops) rather than measured outcomes (soil organic matter, canopy cover, water retention, biodiversity). That invites box‑ticking and label inflation.

  • The Challenges ahead of us are real: Creating resilient coffee farms to strengthen the business models of farmers by bringing harmony back to their land will be a complex and complicated journey that's highly specific to each plot of land. Transition to a resilient coffee farm can take up to a decade or more to achieve. Pay-to-play certifications mislead all stakeholders (including the consumer) into thinking that regenerative agriculture is easy to achieve.

  • High greenwashing risk: “Regenerative” can be co‑opted. Even well‑intended certifications drift toward marketing theatre without making substantial changes toward creating resilient coffee farms. Regulators are already moving against vague environmental claims.

  • Market noise: Another certification adds confusion to an already crowded labelscape (organic, RA, fair trade, carbon‑neutral, etc.) and dilutes farmers' bargaining power.

What Should We Do Instead?

  • Everyone - Watch last week's podcast series with Agroecological scientists Lucia Reid, Madeline Stuart, and Gabriela Copello (start here). They explain the path ahead of us in coffee and what's going to be required to achieve success for those who choose to progress through to resilient coffee farming.

  • Farmers - Get your soil tested and find partners in your community where you can learn together and from each other as you return to the "old ways" of farming and get rid of agrochemicals over time.

  • Green Buyers/ Roasters - Understand the reality of the Herculean journey ahead for your farming partners. Resilient coffee farming is achievable, but not without investment, testing, learning, making mistakes, and patience.

  • Farmers and Buyers/Roasters - Invite a third‑party reviewer to audit methods and data annually. e.g., an Agronomist or an Agroecological Scientist who will help you understand the results of your efforts, how you can course correct, and help you publish a report that is digestible to all your stakeholders.

Regenerative isn’t a sticker! It's an ongoing set of results, requiring partnerships from stakeholders, knowledge sharing, commitment, and steep investment to assist farmers through the challenging transitional years ahead. Selling desperate people "regenerative certifications" and making promises that can't be kept while we're experiencing a coffee crisis is quite literally the last thing that the coffee value chain needs.

THIS WEEK ON the PODCAST

Guest: Jonas Ferraresso - Coffee Agronomist (Brazil) + long-time Map It Forward contributor.

Series Theme: Brazil 2025 Harvest Debrief & 2026 Outlook - climate signals, varieties, and what early pick timing means for the next crop.

Why watch: Brazil just wrapped the 2025 harvest earlier than expected. Jonas explains what drove the timing, what agronomic data is saying about yield and cup quality by region/altitude/variety, and how those signals already shape realistic scenarios for the 2026 crop. If you buy, roast, import, or plan inventories around Brazil, this series helps you adjust contracts, cash flow, and product strategy before Q4 decisions lock in.

Episode guide:

  1. Understanding Coffee Production in Brazil - https://youtu.be/oZAEr__pC24
    Brazil’s production systems in 2025: regional differences, tech adoption, and how scale interacts with climate stress.

  2. The 2025 Brazilian Coffee Harvest - https://youtu.be/ss6Cr14mvwY
    Why the harvest finished early, impacts on yields and processing windows, and what surprised agronomists this season.

  3. 2026 Brazil Coffee Harvest Outlook - https://youtu.be/mmsb1l-Pohs
    Flowering, moisture, and temperature patterns that matter now; best- and base-case scenarios for 2026 availability.

  4. Coffee Varieties and Climate Change - https://youtu.be/LmX-7NaYGZY
    Varietal performance under heat/drought/frost risk; practical takeaways for sourcing profiles and blend resilience.

  5. Expectations for Future Harvests in Brazil - https://youtu.be/Gfa3lOG9S-o
    Multi-year planning: contracts, quality tiers, and how buyers can share risk while protecting consistency.

Access “Introduction to Regenerative Coffee Farming” On-Demand for as little as $10 at the new Map It Forward On-Demand Learning Hub here: www.ondemand.mapitforward.coffee

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