Giving Compass' Take:

• Small-scale coffee farmers face numerous barriers to produce coffee that will provide sufficient income to support their families. More and more rural youth are abandoning their futures in agriculture which could threaten global food security. 

• The average age of a coffee farmer in Africa is 60, while the national average age of farmers in the U.S. is 58.3 and Columbia 56. How can we incentivize younger people to stay in agricultural regions and jobs? 

• Read about how climate change threatens Columbian coffee farmers. 

Small-scale farmers around the world are grappling with a number of challenges—volatile prices, lack of access to finance, the effects of climate change, land grabs—each direr than the next. Among those, the issue of aging farmers can seem like a quaint problem, but it is every bit as important, especially if you’re one of the 7.6 billion people who like to eat.

Efficient production methods have changed the face of agriculture for products like soy or wheat, allowing fewer farmers to produce even greater quantities; yet most of the world’s food is produced by small family farmers, 84 percent of whom are cultivating fewer than five acres.

As these small-scale family farmers age, many are finding that their children have no desire to take over the farm. Mechanization in coffee has been difficult, especially at the farm level, meaning that manual labor is required for high-quality coffee. Most young people in these communities see farming as a high-risk, low-status vocation, and they’re not wrong. Farmers rarely earn what’s needed to feed their families year-round, much less improve their businesses. The work is hard, the margins are non-existent, and there are few upsides.

These facts are fueling a migration of rural youth to urban centers in search of greater opportunity, leaving their parents on the farm. Currently, the average age of coffee farmers across Africa is 60, according to the International Coffee Organization. In Colombia, it’s 56 (for reference, the average age of farmers in the United States is 58.3).

The global market is waking up to the fact that few young people see a future in agriculture, which threatens global food security.

Read the full article about the hardships of coffee farming by Kyle Freund at Food Tank.