NCBA CLUSA USDA NRCS CSC Proposal Narrative – Puerto Rico

This project will lead a consortium of cooperatives, farmer organizations, and minority serving institutions in Puerto Rico that will offer financial incentives to underserved farmers to adopt climate- smart agriculture and forestry practices for production of coffee and other commodities, building climate-smart markets. The project plans to implement a wide variety of on-the-ground climate-smart practices including reduced tillage, strip-tillage, biochar amendments, and cover crops.

The project aims to increase resilience for smallholders Puerto Rican coffee farmers, their families, and their communities by increasing the diversification of crops grown in Multi-story Perennial Cropping systems. Given that Puerto Ricans rely on imports for more than 85% their food supply, farmers’ ability to expand into citrus, plantains, bananas, cacao, and other crops for local and for home consumption would have significant economic and food security benefits.

Due to limitation of USDA’s COMET Planner in PR, the U.S. Virgin Islands, or other U.S.

Territories, the project plans to use the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) Carbon Calculator (http://afolucarbon.org).  Developed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Winrock International, the AFOLU Carbon Calculator (ACC) uses  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate CO2 Change (IPCC)-based accounting methods to assess and quantify sequestration potential of a range of AFOLU practices, including agroforestry, cropland management, and  grazing land management. Third-party verifier SustainCERT plans to verify the greenhouse gas benefits generated by the project and its associated processes.  NCBA CLUSA plans to work with several commodity buyers to market CSCs produced through this pilot project (large market chains,  National Restaurant Association, hospitality sector, and McDonalds).

The PRFA has a “100% Puerto Rico” seal it uses for locally produced products and has agreed to extend the seal for 100% PR Climate-Smart Coffee for differentiation.  The project also plans to engage Rainforest Alliance, a leading third-party certifier for certification of CSAF coffee for export to external markets. Beyond the quantifiable benefits to farmers’ bottom lines, the diversification of crops grown in Multi-story Perennial Cropping systems would increase resilience for smallholders Puerto Rican coffee farmers, their families, and their communities.

Given that Puerto Ricans rely on imports for more than 85% their food supply, farmers’ ability to expand into citrus, plantains, bananas, cacao, and other crops for local and for home consumption would have significant economic and food security benefits.  PROCAFÉ estimates that this project would enroll thousands of coffee farmers in PR (where the vast majority of producers are underserved).