For coffee-farming communities in Situbondo, East Java, climate change is not an abstract concern. Shifting rainfall patterns, rising temperatures, increased pest pressure, and unpredictable growing seasons are already influencing how farmers manage their land and plan their harvests. The question, increasingly, is not whether change is coming, but how to respond to it with clarity and confidence.

On 4 and 5 April 2026, 43 farmers and cooperative members from the Surya Abadi Kayumas Cooperative gathered at PTPN XII's Meeting Hall in Kayumas Village for a two-day training organised by Fairtrade NAPP, with support from trainer consultant Angga Dwiartama and facilitated in part by Intan Savitri Wahyoe, NAPP Programme Manager for Java and Eastern Parts of Indonesia. For a community that has grown coffee for generations, the two days opened conversations that went well beyond the classroom.

What They Were Already Doing Was Right All Along

One of the most significant moments of the training was one many participants did not anticipate: discovering that the farming practices they have long relied on are precisely what climate science recommends. The shade trees, the careful management of soil, the crop diversity maintained across their agroforestry plots, all of these are recognised approaches to both climate adaptation and mitigation.

Through participatory exercises and group discussion, participants explored the difference between adaptation, adjusting farming to the climate impacts already being felt, and mitigation, reducing the activities that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. They found their own farms at the centre of both. Connecting what they already know to what the science describes gave participants greater confidence to continue and deepen their existing practices, while opening new conversations about where further improvement is possible. Farmers left not with a sense of what they had been doing wrong, but with a clearer understanding of the value of what they have built.

From Reading Local Weather to Watching the Wider World

The training introduced farmers to a broader way of reading climate signals. Using seasonal calendar mapping and time-based analysis tools, participants traced how conditions in Kayumas have shifted over the years: changes in rainfall timing and intensity, the arrival of pests and diseases at unusual points in the growing cycle, temperature patterns that no longer follow what older farmers remember. That local picture was then placed within a wider frame.

Farmers recognised that what they observe on their own land is connected to regional and global climate patterns, and that available climate and weather information can inform more precise decisions around planting, pest response, and when to act. Working in groups, participants then applied simple risk mapping tools to identify the specific hazards on their farms, assess who is most vulnerable to those hazards, and develop a range of adaptation and mitigation responses. The result was a set of short- and long-term Youth Climate Action Plans, developed collectively and anchored in the Surya Abadi Kayumas Cooperative's own sustainability strategy.

The Farm Calendar Is Also a Financial Calendar

For women farmers, the training opened a conversation that extended from the farm to the household. A seasonal calendar mapping exercise made visible how climate-related disruptions, a dry spell at the wrong moment, an unexpected pest outbreak, a delayed harvest, connect directly to income, household spending, and financial planning across the year. Women participants reflected openly on the importance of making wiser financial decisions in light of these risks, and of planning household budgets around both farming and non-farming events throughout the seasons.

The discussion also resonated with participants across the group. Farmers recognised crop diversification, through intercropping within coffee farms or cultivating available land with other crops, as a practical way to spread risk and stabilise livelihoods as conditions become less predictable. The insight that managing a farm for climate resilience and managing a household for financial resilience are not separate challenges, but deeply connected ones, was one of the most widely shared takeaways of the two days.

Young Farmers Discover Their Voice in the Cooperative

For many of the younger participants, particularly those just beginning to manage or inherit farms, the training offered both direction and renewed motivation. A dedicated session on Fairtrade governance and youth leadership, facilitated by Intan Savitri Wahyoe, explored how young people can use the structures already in place within the Fairtrade system to advocate for climate action: influencing internal cooperative policies, connecting farm-level decisions to the cooperative's broader sustainability strategy, and taking on active roles in shaping what Kayumas coffee looks like in the years ahead.

Several participants left more committed to coffee farming than when they arrived, seeing it not as a responsibility inherited by default but as a profession worth shaping and developing. That shift in perspective, from passive inheritor to active farmer-leader, was visible across the younger participants, and points to something the cooperative and Fairtrade NAPP are working to sustain over the long term.

Voices from the Activity

Way Forward

Participants left with individual commitments as well as plans for collective action. Farmers committed to continuing the preservation of forests and buffer zones around their farms, not only as a regulatory requirement, but because they now better understand the value of that preservation for the farms and communities they depend on. They also committed to maintaining their agroforestry coffee farming practices and exploring crop diversification through intercropping and other farming methods.

At the cooperative level, a significant step was set in motion: the establishment of collective learning groups specifically for young farmers and adult children of farmers. These groups are designed to build the next cadre of Kayumas cooperative management and to ensure that the skills, knowledge, and commitment needed to sustain Kayumas coffee are passed on to the next generation.

Fairtrade NAPP has committed to including selected youth members in upcoming training sessions planned for September 2026, covering sustainable agriculture, the gender active learning system, and financial literacy. This is a concrete step towards sustained engagement with young farmers across the region.

At the same time, the training surfaced a challenge that will take sustained effort to address: ensuring that young people not only gain knowledge but also have the material conditions to build a future in farming. As Billy noted, a balance between knowledge and capital is what coffee farming requires. Closing that gap remains an ongoing priority for the Surya Abadi Kayumas Cooperative and for Fairtrade NAPP's work in East Java.