Mea Cuppa for a bean species

The girl with a game plan for coffee farmers and the bean itself is an avid traveller, and nature lover. The activist and believer of change being the only way forward loves her pet mutts and walking the plantation route with them in tow.

Growing up in the lap of nature offered Bengaluru social entrepreneur Arshiya Bose the opportunity to understand, love and do something substantial for the environment. “I grew up at Rishi Valley School, Madanapalle, where we lived so close to nature that we would shake out our shoes to see if there were snakes and scorpions lurking,” she shares. Post which, a PhD from University of Cambridge ensued, followed by a decision to take up certifications in a subject she has always been innately passionate about — coffee. “Both of these experiences, first as a young student and then later as a social scientist influenced my ideas on how Black Baza Coffee should come about,” shares Arshiya.

The social side    

Her solo venture, Black Baza Coffee, was started with the simple idea of creating a coffee company that conserves forests, wildlife and water and secures livelihoods of coffee growers. The 34-year-old, who conjured this concept up, did so “as a conservation project to improve biodiversity found on coffee farms in India.” “We spent our first four years, speaking to over 300 growers — documenting shade trees, coffee yields, value chains and simply understanding the challenges of farming sustainably. We found that although India has one of the most sustainable production systems in the world, our coffee was moving rapidly from shade to sun grown,” she shares.  Highlighting on the social bit her venture focuses on, Arshiya enthuses how empowerment of the coffee planters is the key driving factor. “About 70 per cent of all coffee growers are small farmers who cultivate on less than 10 acres. In regions where we work, exploitation, debt cycles and vulnerability to price volatility is very high. In fact, in 2017 our prices to farmers were 46 per cent higher than traders in the same region. We build a set of incentives, quality improvement, financial and farm management programmes that build capacities of coffee producers to be resilient to changes and empowered to act in global markets,” she explains 
The social enterprise kick-started in the year 2015 to support coffee growers to follow biodiversity-friendly farming. “The coffee grown under the shade of indigenous forest trees, without chemical pesticides and with active re-forestation of wildlife-use areas on farms. We believe that if we could create a market for biodiversity-friendly coffee, we’d be able to build a large community of coffee producers within India and across producer nations who follow ecologically acceptable farming practices,” elaborates Arshiya. 

The future is bright
With steely determination to make a difference, the future certainly looks bright for this proactive city girl.”We are currently working on a publication, Coffee Grounds that tells the everyday lives of coffee growers from where we source coffee. The intent is to connect coffee drinkers to the life of how coffee is grown. The impact so far has helped 160 coffee growers, and 18,200 trees have been protected. there’s still a long way to go,” concludes Arshiya with a glimmer in her eyes.