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WCR’s Kraig Kraft discusses challenges in the coffee seed sector in an episode of The Coffee Podcast

To honor the retirement of Dr. Timothy Schilling, founder of World Coffee Research, we talked to a dozen people who have worked closely with him over the course of his coffee career, which began in post-genocide Rwanda and continued to the creation of WCR, the first global, industry-led organization driving collaborative R&D for coffee.

In November 2020, WCR hosted a special discussion on virtuous and regenerative agriculture with Andrea Illy, Chairman of Illycaffè, and Dr. Rattan Lal, winner of the 2020 World Food Prize for his pioneering work to bring soil-health-centric approaches to increasing food production into the mainstream.

Since its inception in 2012, World Coffee Research has worked to establish dozens of trial sites around the world testing both existing and new varieties in different environments, both on research stations and in farmers’ fields. Many of those sites are starting to produce mature harvests, meaning the trees are ready to be evaluated for performance in the field—and in the cup. In 2019, one trial site testing new variety candidates in Costa Rica produced its first production harvest. WCR invited 20 industry cuppers to give feedback on the coffees.

WCR is accelerating the creation of coffee varieties to meet the challenges of the 21st century through the launch of a new Latin American Breeding Hub in Honduras.