Will her daughter follow her footsteps one day? Coffee farmer Ana Cristina becomes thoughtful. We are high up on her coffee farm in Minas Gerais, Brazil. The coffee plants are lined up in the sun, a gentle hilly landscape around us. There, she indicates, is her husband's land. After their marriage, Ana Cristina and her husband combined their farms.

Ana Cristina expresses her hope that her ten-year-old will also become a coffee farmer one day. Unfortunately, this is uncertain.

“The weather has become strange, the climate crisis is serious,” she says. “Sometimes it rains too much, sometimes not at all. Then it is extremely hot at the wrong time. This is what gives us trouble."

Working to counter the effects of the climate crisis

Ana Cristina and her husband are taking action. With the support of Fairtrade, their cooperative COOPFAM is implementing many measures to protect the coffee harvest against extreme weather. These include planting shade trees throughout the farm: tall castor bean stalks protect the sensitive coffee plants from the heat and are later processed into fertiliser.

Where the wind can damage the leaves of their coffee bushes, Ana Cristina and her husband have planted protective rows of corn. Up on the hill, they also dug a large rectangular hole in the ground – a retention basin for rainwater. The water collected there slowly seeps into the ground and helps supply water in case of drought.

Women's coffee and organic production

“The measures we have implemented are already having an impact,” says Ana Cristina. COOPFAM is supporting the conversion of large portions of land to organic farming methods, and is one of the founders of Café Femenino – a women's coffee brand. This means that at least 50 percent of the work and the value added to the coffee -- like roasting and packaging -- is done by women. The money generated from it remains in women's hands.

The last few years have been difficult, says Ana Cristina. In the past 20 years, the frost has repeatedly struck, damaged plants, and destroyed harvests. Some farmers with farms in lower-lying areas, more vulnerable to poor or unpredictable weather conditions, have switched crops to raspberries, mulberries or maize.

Ana Cristina looks at the green around her. The hope that the next generation will also live well from coffee has not been lost. But she knows that hope is not enough -- action is also needed.