Prior to a delicious catered BBQ lunch, we heard from an elite cadre of speakers of speakers, including Luis Fernando Sampler, Tony Hansen, and Daniele Giovannucci. Luis Sampler comes to us from the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia, and he presented on the opportunities that GMO’s in general and the Castillo varietal in particular offer to coffee growers and the Colombian coffee industry. It’s part of a wider push towards GMOs that we’ve noticed throughout a number of presentations at this year’s Symposium, and are recapping for you today without comment. Tony Hansen was up next, to provide a comparison between sustainability and certification in specialty coffee and the wide world of wines. Last, the dashing and debonair Daniele Giovannucci spoke on a variety of topics: change, Facebook, sustainability metrics, and dolphin-free tuna. That’s right, it was a wine, tuna and Castillo sort of pre-lunch scene at the ol’ Ballroom of the Americas, with Mr. Giovannucci going into depth about the Committee On Sustainability Assessment, which is sponsored by the United Nations, Harvard University, and The World Bank, donchaknow. Learn more at www.thecosa.org
Oh, and we almost forgot Sarah Lugaric! She walked us through the world of “Coffee Ball”, a global game with Premier leagues, hat tricks and rabid, octopus-flinging fans around the world. Sarah shared a TED-Ready vision with the audience, a simple set of goals that can help us all advance the march of coffee capitalism and score bicycle-flip ESPN highlight goals in the game of Coffee Ball: share a vision! Be open and transparent! Have clear metrics for success! And always, always look fabulous!
There are heated and fascinating group discussions going on as we speak, before the group reconvenes to view a closing video segment by your very own Sprudge.com audio-visual department. Stay tuned, won’t you?
