Our Mission

On the Ground partners with coffee farmer communities to improve standards of living.

Our changing climate and burgeoning global population are threatening the future of coffee. However, we understand that industry sustainability won’t come from self-serving attempts to protect a valuable crop. It will only come from a collaborative, industry-wide effort to support and develop coffee-growing communities. Our duty is to encourage others to look past their cup and to see those farming families who are still struggling.

We view our coffee-producing colleagues as equals, as friends. We believe that families who farm coffee deserve the same access to basic human rights as the people who trade, roast and consume their coffee.  Our dream is to see inequity ended in the specialty coffee industry and to see our friends thrive.

Freed from the burdens of tainted water, malnutrition, disease, illiteracy and economic and political instability, farming communities are capable of producing higher-quality coffee, which supports further development and enriches their entire supply chain.

Sustainability starts where inequity ends.