Share your coffee stories with us by writing to info@comunicaffe.com.
MILAN – Born and raised in Los Angeles, Dr. Erika Koss is writer, educator, and researcher with a special focus on sustainability and gender equity of beverage crops such as coffee, tea, & cacao. She lives in Nairobi, Kenya, where she founded her education and research business, A World in Your Cup Consulting. She is a SCA Authorized Specialty Coffee Trainer in Sensory Skills and Sustainability, a barista judge, and a co-creator of the SCA Sustainability curriculum. Dr. Koss has taught literature, writing, and politics at several universities in North America.
Her PhD examines gender gaps in the coffee industry with historical analysis and case studies focused on Kenya. In 2024, she launched her Gender in Coffee course, focused on the historic discrimination and ongoing challenges particular to women in coffee. Dr. Koss is a regular contributor to several coffee publications and businesses such as Urnex, as well as a frequent speaker.
She is working on her first book of creative non-fiction.
To learn more about her work and her travels, follow her Substack newsletter:
https://erikakoss.substack.com or on Instagram @aworldinyourcup.
Dr. Koss, let us start with the concept you created called the ‘Gendered coffee paradox’: what does it consist of and where do we stand today?
“It is an expression I created during my PhD studies, with the aim of finding a way to make a broad concept more concise: I asked myself what the problem was and secondly how to communicate it in the most direct way possible. The focus on a “coffee paradox” was inspired by reading a book with that title, ‘The Coffee Paradox’, written by two social scientists and published in 2005.
This started as I was working on my second Master’s Degree in political science: it was then that I had to consult many texts related to global supply chains, from anthropological, sociological, economic points of view. After reading many, many coffee books, it was clear that a fundamental part was missing in all these readings. Where were the women’s stories? Where were women in these books?
How could it be that despite so many books about coffee, an industry in which women endoteli play a fundamental role, no one was publishing their stories?
The “coffee paradox,” from the 2005 book, focused on global markets and coffee supply chains, where there is an evident imbalance between the production and consumer zones, between the North and the South of the Planet. All this is clear and true, but the authors didn’t discuss another big gap: the lack of in-depth study dedicated to women working in all parts of coffees’ global value chain.
Coffee has a huge gender gap, and one day working on my doctoral dissertaton, I thought to myself: this could be called “the gender coffee paradox.” There is a quote I referred to at this point in my journey: ‘If there is a book you would like to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you have to write it’. – from a 1981 speech by Toni Morrison, delivered at the Ohio Arts Council (in the US).
So faced with the evidence that there are so many women in the industry – we all know this, we are aware of it – and that, despite this, it remains that very little attention goes to women, I wanted to make a different contribution.
I write about this paradox of invisibility: why is it that women do most of the work on the plantations and yet men – especially in Africa where men hold the land titles – still, for the most part, receive the money, the credit, the power?
But it’s not just on the producing side. The gender coffee paradox arises also in the Global North, and I’ve had students or heard stories from all parts of the supply chain: do women feel their voices are heard? Even when women get to top positions, do they really feel entitled to step up and advocated for other women? Sometimes the answer is often, unfortunately, no.
I have tried to convey all this within the single axiom of the ‘gender coffee paradox’ to try to summarize this coffee Gender Gap: an entire system that produces coffee and relies on this unjust dynamic between men and women.”
Is the condition of women the same in all growing countries in your experience? And compared to women in consuming countries?
“Indeed, further reflection is needed to answer this question fully and with depth. My Master’s degree focused on the realities in Rwanda. My doctoral degree focused on Kenya. I’ve travelled all around the world for coffee, and I can say, also as a teacher with several years of experience in online supply chain and sustainability courses, that I have had contact with female students from all over the world and from different professions: unfortunately, each time, I have collected several accounts of abuses of power and sexual harassment in the workplace and beyond.
Many of us women, myself included, have experienced such incidents in more ways than one, not only in the coffee industry.
There are chain events of violence, discrimination, and not only sexual, which diminish our value as human beings. Often it is even more difficult for women to denounce and speak out about these mechanisms, because it is almost perceived as something acquired that happens normally. Not many people talk about it because it is scary, but it happens on a daily basis. Often we don’t speak out becuase we’re afraid if we do, we will lose our jobs or the possibility of a job—and we need the money to care for ourselves or our children.
That is why I wanted to focus on women: there are such paradoxes all along the chain, from the origins to the consumer countries. It is something that women experience differently than men, and it is very present in the coffee industry.
Often, especially in Kenya where I live, or elsewhere on trips, I am on the only woman at a cupping table, or on a rural coffee trip. Why does this happen? Often in Kenya, I observe that most of the buyers and roasters who visit are men. It cannot be that there are no women in these jobs – but who gets to go on the trips?
With regard to Italy specifically, I have learned some significant data from an Italian female coffee professional: there are a total of 80 ASTs in Italy, the SCA trainers, and of these only eight are women. This already tells a lot.
So ultimately, with respect to the question, here’s what I can say: I have observed, based on my experience in contact with so many coffee professionals and coffee students around the world, that the “gendered coffee paradox” exists and contains within it various factors that are then expressed differently depending on the country in which it is analysed.
It’s important to add here: we have to look at context. I hope more women will voice and share their storeis from their own life experiences, in coffee and beyond.
For exmaple, I used to live in Canada, and I see the gendered paradox operating differently there, than in Kenya, but it is certainly present in both cases.”
Is there any data that tells us about the current working and social conditions of women in coffee?
Koss: “When it comes to women and coffee, there is very little accurate data. This was a big motivation for me to pursue my Phd. I wanted to try to make a contribution to my field of research: international development and political science.
I did not just want to complain about the lack of presence of information and data: I wanted to check whether I was actually right about this first impression of lack of data. Finally through more than 160 interviews, both men and women in East Africa also confirmed the existence of this imbalance. Both men and women confirmed in interviews that we must work together to make our coffee systems fairer. Remember – gender is not just about women: It’s about making a better world to our children, of whatever gender, without fear.”
Koss, tell us about the case study you examined, on the state of Kenya?
“To sum up, I decided to focus on the farmers’ point of view, precisely where the greatest challenge exists and fewer stories are published. In Kenya, women are very much present on all the farms, from picking and sorting to processing. Women farmers themselves urged me to share and publish their storeis. Here, it is always women you can see in the rural areas, carring coffee cherries on their heads and shoulders, even for dozens of kilometres up and down hills. Too often, washing stations are far from their farms or fields, and this task of carrying the drupes on their shoulders for a very long and bumpy journey, belongs to the women, according to cultural norms. This is also true for carrying water, which is also very heavy and hard to carry long distances.
I also observed strong connections between the ‘gender coffee paradox’ and ongoing effects of colonialism. Although Kenya fought for its independence and gained it in 1963, there are still dynamics and procedures today, for example, the trading and transportation of coffee in and out of the country, which continue different structures imposed by the British.
For an example, we can consider the issue of land titles. Before the British arrived, land ownership was communal, not based on individual land ownership. They imposed the concept of the legal need for a “title deed” to own land. After independence, this land tenure protocol remained in vogue. With the new Constitution in 2010, women in Kenya are legally allowed to hold land, but sometimes, customary or cultural norms may effectively excludes them.
This matters in the context of coffee because if women do not have access to the title, they may not be financially independent, or able to access a bank account, or obtain payment for their coffee. In some cases therefore, money does not go into women’s pockets, despite the fact that it is they who do the hard physical labour on farms.
But the picture is not all bleak, because in Kenya and beyond, there are so many excellent examples of women leaders. So many, I have had the pleasure to meet, some in my dissertation, are working so diligently to change things in their sphere.
The coffee sector is complex. I’m a social scientist – so no one should make the same argument for all cultures, histories, traditions, languages, religions: one strategy for improvement is to consider ways to bring women forward into roles of power in the different ways possible in different contexts.
Today, many NGOs and coffee corporations are moving to promote models of education and training, including different kinds of interventions. Sometimes this comes with agricultural experts going to farms – but it’s important that women can attend trainings at times or dates convinent for them. Remember women often do not have extra time or energy to add on all kinds of extra things.
They are already doing so much, caring for business and family, and trying to see that their children are educated. Paradoxically, again, sometimes the people attending trainings or classes are men, who may not convey the informations to women, who are the ones doing the manual and physical labour, every day.
Quite simply, let us first ask the women themselves what they need, without then thinking of explaining to them what they really need. Let us listen to them all along the chain: it seems obvious but it is not always what happens. One great solution I have seen at work is the GALS theory and training, which stands for “Gender Action Learning System.”
It was created by sociologist Linda Mayoux in partnership with agricultural communities, including a coffee cooperative in Uganda. I have seen examples of this success because it involves both men and women in the training process to transforms households and communities. In East Africa there are many success stories derived from the application of this system in coffee.
The issue of time for training remains a point to be worked on: the system must be supportive of women, taking into account the actual working hours and workloads they have to bear so that they can also attend classes. Training and research should also take into account if and when children are in school. Women’s schedules differ based on the people they need to care for.
It is very difficult for a working woman, who has to take into account many children or elderly care duties even at the same time, to find time for her own education. One should not only consider the cost part of these courses, but also the real life part that they have to bear. I see some women being left behind in these ways.
Support for women must be concrete, not just words, in terms of accessibility, in terms of
facilitating sustainability and gender equity. Governments should offer more social supports to its citizens, in general, but now in the 21st century, many non-profit organisations, coffee companies, and proactive assocations created by women are stepping forward and opening more opportunities for women.
To conclude, I can repeat: people who work with women in coffee: please ask and really listen to what women are asking for. Without assuming a priori how and on what to intervene.
I see so many examples of people trying to improve things and this often comes from women’s networking and trying to communicate together. The coffee industry is filled with many examples of strong female leaders who are working to make gender equity a reality. I have seen it from Mexico to Indonesia, and all over in between.
We women exist, we are here, and I hope more and more women will share their stories, so there will be more collections in the future in all different art forms. One person at a time, there will be more and one day we will go to the library to read about the world of coffee from a woman’s point of view.”
