Robert Rice Email & Phone Number

For 24-plus years, I worked at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center (SMBC) conducting land use studies related to bird habitat. For most of this time I've also overseen the innovative shade coffee certification program we developed from field work done in the 1990s--called the Bird Friendly program. I successfully took the coffee-as-habitat concept to the specialty coffee industry, where the Bird Friendly program is regarded as the most stringent, rigorous program focused on sustainable coffee agroforestry systems. Having lived in numerous Latin American countries since childhood, I am fluent in Spanish and delight in interacting with coffee people, be them peasant producers (the backbone of the industry), estate farmers, agronomists, organic certification agency staff or coffee researchers. Aside from my activities at the SMBC, I've also done consulting related to sustainable coffee in Latin America and Africa.As of 2019, I retired from the Smithsonian and now live in North Carolina. Still connected via Research Associate status.

Listed skills include Editing, Sustainability, Ecology, Research, and 4 others.

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  Research Geographer

  Smithsonian

  Jul 1995 - Present - Washington D.C. Metro Area

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  University Of California, Berkeley

  Geography