The voice of the world's coffee producers

Message from the Chair

Each generation better off than the one before

Dear Coffee Friends and Colleagues,

I would like to begin by congratulating the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia on its first centennial, and to express, personally and on behalf of the World Coffee Producers Forum, how honored we are to hold our meeting in Colombia once again, as we did ten years ago, and how grateful we are to the Federación for letting us share in its remarkable history and for making us part of its centennial celebration on June 27, 2027.

Coffee producers share much more than a crop. From the mountains of Central America and the Andes to the hills of Rwanda, Vietnam and India, millions of families, most of them on small farms, tend the same plant, face the same markets and hold the same hopes for their children. That shared history brought producer organizations from Latin America, Africa and Asia together in 2016 and 2017 to create the World Coffee Producers Forum, a place where the people who grow the world's coffee speak with their own voice.

Consumers today are more discerning than ever. They want to know where their coffee comes from, who grew it and whether it was produced sustainably, and they value what lies behind every cup. That is good news. Yet the families who grow coffee still face serious obstacles to being sustainable and to prospering: volatile prices, production costs that often exceed what they are paid, a changing climate, and farms that too few young people want to inherit.

For the Forum, prosperity has a simple meaning. It is a livelihood that keeps improving, so that the children of coffee farmers are better off than their parents, and their grandchildren better off still. Each generation should live in a better situation than the one before. That is the measure we use for our work.

No one can achieve this alone. Producers must act, and act together with the whole value chain: exporters, importers, roasters and retailers; international cooperation agencies and development banks; universities and civil society; and, very especially, governments, in producing countries and around the world. Our studies with Professor Jeffrey Sachs and our partners have shown that national plans built on the Sustainable Development Goals give everyone a shared roadmap and a way to measure progress.

One gap deserves special attention: technology and connectivity. Young people in coffee regions need internet access, digital education and a real place in a digital economy that keeps growing, now driven forward by artificial intelligence. Closing this gap will help them prosper, on the farm and beyond it. It will also help stop the distance between developed and developing countries from widening further, as it has until now.

International cooperation is essential to overcome the challenges producers face and to secure their prosperity. In recent years that cooperation has become much harder to sustain, for many reasons: political change, wars and economic difficulties in many countries. This is what moved the producer associations that make up the World Coffee Producers Forum to convene the Global Cooperation Summit for the Coffee Sector in Medellín in June 2027, ten years after our first meeting in the same city.

At the Summit, we will work to renew and facilitate global cooperation so that coffee-producing countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and Asia can build a prosperous future for their farmers. We invite governments, cooperation agencies, industry, civil society and, above all, producers to join us in this effort.

Our history

Organized by producers, for producers

The Forum was born from a simple conviction: the people who grow the world's coffee must have a seat at the table where its future is decided. Most of the world's coffee comes from smallholder families, and for decades many of them have been unable to cover their production costs.

In 2017, producing countries convened the first World Coffee Producers Forum in Medellín, Colombia. Nearly 1,500 participants from more than 40 countries agreed on a shared diagnosis of the sector's challenges and adopted the Medellín Declaration.

Later editions in Campinas, Brazil (2019) and Kigali, Rwanda (2023) moved the agenda from diagnosis to action, centered on national plans, grounded in the Sustainable Development Goals, that help producing countries achieve prosperity for their farmers.

Our declaration

The Kigali Declaration

III World Coffee Producers Forum · Kigali, Rwanda · 2023

At the III World Coffee Producers Forum in Kigali, Rwanda, on February 13 and 14, 2023, 1,020 participants from 43 countries examined three questions: whether living income leads to prosperity, whether climate change is the end of coffee, and how environmental regulations in consuming countries affect farmers. Their conclusions and recommendations are set out in the Kigali Declaration.

Main commitment

“SDG-based National Coffee Sustainability Plans to Achieve Farmers’ Prosperity”

The Declaration’s mandate asks the Forum to deliver guidelines so that producing countries can design these prosperity plans together with stakeholders and partners. The Forum answered with its 2025 handbook, prepared with Professor Jeffrey Sachs and its knowledge partners.

Our next meeting · 10th anniversary

Global Cooperation Summit for the Coffee Sector

Co-hosted with the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia, in its centennial year

Ten years after the first Forum, the World Coffee Producers Forum returns to Medellín. Political change, wars and economic strain have weakened international cooperation just as producers need it most. The Summit will bring producers, governments, cooperation agencies, industry and civil society together to renew it.

The Summit

Week of June 23–26, 2027

Forum meeting and field trip to coffee farms

Where

Medellín, Colombia

Venue to be announced

The Summit coincides with the Federación's centennial celebrations in June 2027.