Bird Friendly® Coffee Workshop in Indonesia

Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center (SMBC) staff, with the help of the local office of Indonesia's Control Union (a Dutch certification agency with staff in various countries), held a training workshop for inspectors March 3-6.

Organized locally by Winaryo Suyono of Control Union, inspectors from that certification agency, as well as some from the newly formed national agency SDS met in Jember City in East Java to learn the details and methodology of inspecting shade coffee farms according to the Bird Friendly® criteria. Jember is the site of Indonesia's Coffee and Cocoa Research Institute.

A total of 6 individuals from the 2 agencies—3 of whom have long-time research experience at the above-mentioned research center—met with Robert Rice (of SMBC) in Jember City over 3 days, where they participated in classroom sessions as well as field a practicum to get hands-on experience in the ways of shade evaluation.

While the area features mostly Coffea canephora (robusta), there were shaded fields with plenty of shade to serve the purpose of training. Workshop participants can now apply the inspection techniques to both C. canephora and C. arabica farms.

The goal is to identify farms and farmer groups that meet the SMBC criteria, providing roasters in the U.S. and Japan an additional (and Asian) origin to the Bird Friendly® offerings.

We look forward to seeing coffees from numerous Indonesian zones being certified as Bird Friendly®, linking growers to consumers in our efforts to promote the importance of managed lands as critical in providing quality habitat and protecting biodiversity.

Indonesian offices that inspect and certify farms

This page in Indonesian