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It's been a long time in the making here on Deconstructing Dinner to air a feature on coffee, the second most valuable traded commodity in the world, second only to petroleum.

And so if coffee is the most valuable agricultural commodity on the planet, then deconstructing coffee is possibly the closest we can come to deconstructing humanity itself.

Coffee is constantly scrutinized for its human and social impacts around the world, but rarely do we examine the environmental consequences of a Tim Horton's Double Double, a Starbuck's Cappucino, or even an Organic/Fair Trade Espresso.

This broadcast will examine how the removal of human labour from the coffee industry has led to poverty, hunger, environmental destruction and climate change.

Guests

Adam Tomasek - Priority Leader for Borneo-Sumatra, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) (Washington, D.C.) - In January 2007, WWF released a report titled "Gone in an Instant". The report finds coffee lovers the world over are unknowingly drinking coffee illegaly grown inside one of the world's most important national parks for tigers, elephants and rhinos -- Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in Indonesia. Illegally grown coffee is mixed with legally grown coffee beans and sold to such companies as Kraft Foods and Nestle among other. This coffee is threatening the future survival of 3 animal species.

Daniel Fourwinds - Capulin Coffee (Nayarit, Mexico) - Capulin is a hand crafted, traditionally sun-dried, 100% jungle shade grown natural coffee. Capulin claims to provide the sweetest, least bitter and most stimulating 100% Arabica Tipica coffee available anywhere, and provides more money per pound directly to local villagers than any other coffee company on the planet. This coffee illustrates the destructive forces ALL water-processed (washed) coffees are having on people and the planet.

Benji Hansen - Clean Bean Café (Nelson, BC) - The Clean Bean Café exclusively sells Capulin Coffee. Located alongside the main highway running through the city, the coffee is sold out of the back of a trailer and is essentially a drive-thru coffee shop. But while Capulin Coffee presents a real opportunnity for social and environmental change, Benji Hansen is encouraging yet another level of change by NOT offering ANY take-out cups. Instead, Hansen maintains a 'mug orphanage' whereby customers are free to take their ceramic mug with them! Hey fast food chains and coffee shops..........take some notes!

• Capulin Coffee
• World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
• Benji Hansen - Clean Bean Cafe (cafeamorcafe@gmail.com)
• Kraft Foods
• Nestle
• Maxwell House
• Nabob
• Nescafe

Mitch Kushner
Bean Here Now
Nelson, British Columbia
Phone: 250-352-0020
Email: capulincanada@netidea.com

Articles/Reports

• "Gone in an Instant" - Background
• "Gone in an Instant" - Full Report
• Environmental Impact of Coffee Production - WWF
• "Tropical Deforestation and Climate Change" - Environmental Defense
• "Money and the Earth - Controlling the Fate of the Forests" - Organica News
• "Seeing the Forest for the Trees" - Tucson Weekly

• Jul. 20/06 - Shocking Sugar
• Jul. 27/06 - Packaged Foods Exposed II - Nestle
• Apr. 12/07 - Packaged Foods Exposed III - Kraft Foods