FAO calls for connected coffee data at the ICO CEOs & Global Leaders Forum

Geneva, 30 September 2026 – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) joined coffee value chain leaders in Geneva for the 8th CEOs & Global Leaders Forum of the International Coffee Organization (ICO), contributing to a session on how collective data initiatives can strengthen due diligence and create wider value for the coffee sector.

Organized by the ICO's Coffee Public-Private Task Force, Session 3, "Collective Information and Data Initiatives in the Coffee Sector," brought together private companies, international organizations and coffee-producing countries. It looked at data gaps and practical challenges in areas such as land use, legality, human rights, forced and child labour, and income, and at how global initiatives can connect with national systems.

Alessia Correani, Innovation Officer (Frontier Technologies) at FAO, presented FAO's work on coffee data ecosystems. This includes connecting existing coffee data initiatives through common standards, interoperability and data harmonization, and exploring the role of artificial intelligence.

"We are witnessing a paradigm shift in the global market," Correani said. "Linear economic models, built on the assumption of unlimited resources, are no longer sustainable, and they are no longer sufficient in a time of geopolitical instability and climate extremes."

She said that data and AI create an unprecedented opportunity for Agrifood systems. "We have the chance, if we start breaking the silos, to create a real collective intelligence, and the promise is to help humanity thrive. But this promise cannot be fulfilled if each data producer acts in isolation, if farmers are excluded from this shared knowledge. The power of AI can be realized if data and intelligence are connected and shared." The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.

Correani introduced FAO's upcoming global coffee intelligence platform, designed to support smallholder farmers, who produce an estimated 80% of the world's coffee, to be seen and rewarded. Yet of the roughly 12.5 million smallholders who depend on the crop, only 20% live above the poverty line. The platform will integrate farm- and cooperative-level data with satellite, climate, market and socioeconomic datasets through a commodity-specific coffee data cube. It aims to create a shared and fair view of coffee production and make smallholder contributions visible across the value chain incentivising and rewarding regenerative agricultural practices. Correani stressed that a robust governance and partnership model will be key to scaling the platform and to generating value beyond regulatory compliance, including greater transparency, farmer’s ability to access the market and to be adaptable to change. "As FAO, we have the mandate to support international multilateral collaboration," she said. "This is an occasion to gather all coffee value chain actors together to make sure we are not missing this opportunity."

FAO's presentation was part of a programme that also featured JDE Peet's, presenting the Coffee Canopy Partnership's global reference coffee and forest maps, and the European Forest Institute (EFI), sharing lessons from public-private pilots in coffee-producing countries. Representatives of Ethiopia, El Salvador, Papua New Guinea and Togo then responded with national perspectives on linking their own data systems with global initiatives. The session was moderated by Hannelore Beerlandt, Head of Operations and Acting Coordinator of the Coffee Public-Private Task Force at the ICO.