Over time, our work has evolved from focusing mainly on ecological processes in coffee agroecosystems to a transdisciplinary approach grounded in Participatory Action Research (PAR). Our recent work has sought to understand processes that strengthen food security and sovereignty in smallholder coffee communities, including strategies that promote agricultural diversification strategies and soil health in the context of a changing climate.

Participatory Action Research

A distinguishing feature of the IFA’s research activities in the coffeelands is its methodological approach. Participatory Action Research (PAR) has been the link between academia and agroecological movements in Latin America and the common thread of the IFA’s two-decades-long engagement with coffee producers. 

While our team’s research results in standard research outputs like publications, it also produces fruits outside of the academic sphere in the experiences and learning of our collaborators, in co-created popular education materials and in local actions prompted by these processes.  

Where We Work

The map below shows the geographic scope of our work, after which we describe our areas of focus in more detail.

The majority of smallholder coffee farmer households in Central American and Southern Mexican coffee lands experience seasonal food insecurity, or “thin months” (read more here, here, here, here, and here). Our ongoing research in coffee communities shows that agricultural diversification remains an important agroecological strategy for smallholder coffee producers to build food security and sovereignty and reduce dependency on coffee sales. Enhancing agrobiodiversity in coffee farms is key to strengthening resilience and autonomy in the face of multiple stressors, like climate change, violence, emigration, and fluctuating commodity markets.

Co-Created Materials

Popular education posters, co-created in collaboration with the CESMACH coffee cooperative, Institute for Agroecology, Bee Lab at ECOSUR University in Chiapas, and Community Agroecology Network (CAN) illustrate different aspects of on-farm diversification in coffee landscapes. Healthy Eating Plate shows what locally relevant and nutritious diets can look like in Chiapas. Agricultural calendars (here, here, and here) highlight the tasks that go into producing coffee, corn, and honey. The pollination poster visualizes the contributions of bees and other animal pollinators to the production of food crops in coffee agroecosystems. 

As part of an IFA-affiliated project and in collaboration with farmers from the CESMACH coffee cooperative, Espora Media, and the Universidad Veracruzana, the documentary, Todavía se Puede, presents the meaning of conserving the milpa - a traditional Mesoamerican method of growing corn, beans, and other crops - as told from the perspective of farming families in the Sierra Madre de Chiapas. We're happy to share this documentary with you now.

Since 2022, we have been facilitating research on soil health in coffee agroecosystems in Mexico and Guatemala with the CESMACH and ASOBAGRI coffee cooperatives. The objective of the project was to co-produce knowledge about the relationships between the structure of coffee agroecosystems, indicators of soil health, coffee productivity and coffee cup quality. Follow our progress on the project here.