By Ma'Ryah McCloud
Sustainability is a word that gets thrown around a lot in advertising, but often when people peek behind the curtain of the companies that use it- it’s nothing more than a label to support greenwashing. Greenwashing is when a company falsely portrays itself to be more sustainable than it actually is. And it’s easy to believe because very few businesses even try.
If you noticed the most recent launch, then you’re familiar with the new Selva Verde Caranavi roast originating from the Caranavi region of Bolivia. This reason has a very dense forest and in the interest of protecting the trees and ecosystem- farmers opted to maintain the existing canopy and grow the beans in the shade. This method stabilizes soil, stores carbon, and maintains a long term ecological balance. It’s practices like these that Java Love looks for when looking for farms to source our beans. People may not realize, but the world truly runs on farmers. Without them we not only wouldn’t have food, but an incredibly long list of fibers, ingredients and other raw materials that we use everyday.
The United Nations has declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer to highlight the importance of the work women do in agriculture. This declaration aims to bring attention to the plights of women farmers and hopefully improve their rights as workers, work conditions, wages and food security. For all the work these women do, they should benefit just as much as billion dollar companies do- if not more given the fact that there’s very few people with a vast amount of resources at their disposal. Community is how despite the previous fact, we as women have gotten this far.
Today we live in a time where climate change is taking effect while women are being disproportionately affected by food insecurity and having their rights threatened. It’s important that we’re all mindful about the state of our ecosystem and ways we can help those who are unable to provide or speak up for themselves. As Americans especially, we’re much more privileged than we often realize- and it’s advocacy like what the UN is doing that creates change. It’s imperative that women are able to thrive in this world, not just survive.
