March 2023
At JDE Peet’s our commitment to Responsible Sourcing involves a journey of continuous improvement to boost farmer prosperity, promote regenerative agriculture, and protect the future of the coffee and tea industry.
Responsible Sourcing
In line with our Responsible Sourcing principles, we work with our partners, engaging our suppliers to understand the challenges of the supply chain. We also partner with Enveritas who carry out independent farm assessments to identify risk areas across our supply chain. Using the insights from supplier engagement and risk mapping we set up farmer programmes to address the specific needs of farming communities around the globe.
Vietnam is home to 700,000 coffee farmers, many of whom are smallholders who have had little access to capacity building and services to
improve their sustainability. We have identified key priority issues for coffee farmers in Vietnam and are working to address these with projects across the country.
In this region, farmers traditionally apply a lot of chemical fertilisers which result in 85% higher carbon emissions (as fertilizer accounts for nearly three quarters of emissions associated with coffee farming in Vietnam), and coffee with chemical residue, which affects its quality. Many farmers use a monocropping system and have not received training in how to use water efficiently, on best practices to prune their coffee trees effectively, or on the importance of wearing the correct protective equipment when applying agrochemicals.
We set up a long-term partnership with one of our strategic suppliers, Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC), and our long-term partner IDH the Sustainable Trade Initiative, and Syngenta, to provide leading agricultural solutions, to help farmers reduce negative environmental impacts, protect and restore biodiversity.
Using a landscape approach over a 30,000 hectare area we have set up a programme that aims to improve the livelihoods of smallholder coffee farmers, by improving the quality and quantity of coffee yields. The farmers are able to receive hands-on training on 30 demonstration plots that have been set up across the landscape. This includes training on:
The project is being delivered in phases. The first phase ran between 2016 and 2021. To date, we have reached 7,800 coffee farmers across 10,557 hectares of land in four key coffee-producing regions in Vietnam, producing nearly 32,234 metric tons of sustainable coffee, improving farmer incomes and livelihoods.
With 98% of farmers continuing to apply the training on their farms, the project has been successful, demonstrating a strong model for working with farmers to create long-term benefits.
We promote agricultural methods that protect our planet for future generations, to help farmers mitigate and adapt to climate change, improve soil health, and ensure good water stewardship
We raise awareness of practices that promote equal opportunities, to promote gender and youth equality and aid good working conditions
We help build capacities in farm management for farming to be more economically viable, supporting farmers to adopt good farming practices for yield improvement and income diversification to improve their livelihoods.
Sourcing coffee responsibly means engaging with farmers and situations to understand the challenges, and actively addressing these issues to drive progress. At JDE Peet’s we are on track to reach our commitment of 100% responsibly sourced coffee by 2025, raising awareness amongst farmers about the importance of minimising their negative environmental impact through projects such as those in Vietnam.
Do Ngoc Sy - Sustainability Manager, APAC at JDEP