Volcafe partners with Rainforest Alliance in developing their Regenerative Agriculture-certified coffees

New standard promotes regenerative agriculture at farms.

One of the best-known agricultural certifications in the world, Rainforest Alliance, has recently developed a new Regenerative Agriculture Standard, with the active support of Volcafe.

Volcafe agronomists from Costa Rica and Honduras have supported the organisation in understanding the practicalities of implementing Regenerative Agriculture practices in the field and ensuring an impactful and practical implementation.

Rainforest Alliance’s new Regenerative Agriculture Standard adds a special focus on farming techniques that restore soil health, enable biodiversity, and promote climate resilience. These aims align closely with the approach of our Volcafe Way programme, which offers technical advice and material support to more than 45,000 farmers through 250+ dedicated agronomists and 700+ model farms in ten countries.

To get an understanding of how our Volcafe Way teams helped with the roll-out of the new Regenerative Agriculture standard, we asked our team in Costa Rica for a few insights on the collaboration.

Validating and accelerating good practices

As Riley Thomson, Volcafe’s Farmer Support Organisation Manager in Costa Rica, puts it, “Generally, it was a good way to validate good practices that we have been promoting for years, and that coffee farmers have been carrying out for quite some time.” Examples include soil analysis to ensure efficient fertilisation plans, implementing agroforestry systems by planting native trees in coffee plantations, and reducing the use of pesticides.

Building knowledge and motivation

Field days promoting regenerative practices were held in three regions: San Diego, Santo Domingo, and Pérez Zeledón. These events provided practical know-how and generated the motivation needed for the entire group to succeed in the global early adopters’ audit of the new standard.

Leveraging technology for compliance and insights

Our technical team in the field found creative ways to use geodata – farm polygons captured for EUDR compliance – to produce baseline KPIs required by group administrators in the first year. Through tele-detection and GIS analysis, they indirectly determined values such as soil organic matter, erosion rates, and percentages of soil use and forest cover.

Volcafe Costa Rica, working in partnership with a roaster customer, has become one of the first companies to source coffee under this new Rainforest Alliance Regenerative Agriculture Standard. The coffees sourced through this partnership will bear a new Rainforest Alliance seal that consumers can use to identify products supporting farmers in the adoption of regenerative agriculture.

Volcafe Costa Rica and Rainforest Alliance teams discussing the roll-out of the new standard

Coffee farmer in Costa Rica applying compost

Coffee farmer in Costa Rica trimming his coffee plot