Bay Area Coffee Drinkers to Help Farmers Stay Ahead of the Storm After USAID

San Francisco, CA — July 2025

Climate Smart Coffee, a platform that connects coffee drinkers directly to the farmers behind their beans, is launching a new campaign in the Bay Area — just weeks after USAID abruptly shut down its Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) program and laid off its staff in June.

The program was funding important work with Climate Smart Coffee with a large-scale program in Kenya, where it now has over 10,000 smallholder farmers as members. Members get access to tools like climate crop insurance, weather alerts via WhatsApp, and regenerative training -- powered by satellites and AI. The funding loss comes at a time when climate risk is growing and access to these protections remains out of reach for most smallholder farmers.

But rather than shut down, Climate Smart Coffee is doubling down.

In June, the initiative was selected as a semifinalist in the MIT Solve 2025 Global Climate Challenge, recognized for its innovative approach in climate, using “AI for Good.” With real-time feedback loops and indigenous knowledge, the platform enables farmers to adapt to climate risks in ways that are affordable, data-informed, and locally driven.

Headquartered in San Francisco, an international hub for artificial intelligence innovation, the team is bringing Climate Smart Coffee to US consumers. The new campaign invites coffee lovers and roasters across the Bay Area to fund the future of ethical coffee through their everyday purchases. Each bag on the platform supports a real farmer cooperative, and each sale reinvests in crop insurance, AI-powered alerts, and transparent profiles built by farmers themselves.

“There’s a lot of talk about the impact of AI, but still very little reaching the 500 million smallholder farmers on the front lines of climate change,” says founder Ashley King-Bischof, a Bay Area native who first moved to Kenya a decade ago after working for a number of Bay Area unicorns. “Climate Smart Coffee puts those farmers first, while bringing more high-quality coffee to all of us.”

Many of the roasters in the Climate Smart Coffee network are part of the coffee diaspora—like Achille Massoma of Akoma Coffee, based right here, roasting unique coffee in the East Bay. These roasters understand the value of transparency and the origin story. Their partnership validates the approach and points to a future where sustainability and equity are not just buzzwords, but embedded in every cup.