Thanks to a recently awarded grant, Info Sci Professor Gilly Leshed and her fellow researchers, including undergraduate students, are headed to Mexico at month’s end to begin research for a tool to help coffee growers get fair prices for their crops.
Working alongside Fair Trade USA and coffee co-ops, the team will collect real-world production costs of sustainable coffee and design an online “coffee calculator” to help Latin American coffee growers compare costs of production systems. The research trip to Mexico is supported by an Engaged Cornell grant aimed at expanding participation and supporting undergraduate student learning through community-engaged research.
This is the second award of financial support to the coffee initiative. Last summer, the team was among several groups who were awarded venture funds by Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.