TRANSSUSTAIN is in the spotlight for production costs research
A recent collaboration between the TRANSSUSTAIN research project, University of California Davis, and The International Coffee Organization has resulted in a study that could help the coffee sector benchmark global production costs and farmer profitability. In "The Cost Conundrum", spotlight article published in the Specialty Coffee Association magazine, the researchers use the data collected as part of the TRANSSUSTAIN project to calculate production costs and gross profits in Colombia, Honduras and Costa Rica considering the full heterogeneity of the sample. The findings of the study suggest reasons for concern: Over a quarter of sample producers in Honduras and Costa Rica failed to break even in the 2015–16 coffee year, with the situation significantly worse in Colombia where just over half of sample producers failed to break even. This study highlights the importance of research initiatives such as TRANSSUSTAIN that generate high-quality data on production costs for large, representative samples of producers.