When you think of Smucker’s, jelly and jams typically come to mind, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. The J.M. Smucker Company is actually a leading distributor of Folgers and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee brands (who knew?), with coffee accounting for 40% of the company’s net sales and nearly half of its profits. That’s a whole lot of coffee, considering that the company sells and manufactures many other widely-used household brands like Crisco, Jif, and Pillsbury.

Coffee crops are highly sensitive to weather and temperature fluctuations making it particularly vulnerable to climate change. This past year the cost of coffee skyrocketed following increased demand and poor harvests in high-producing countries like Colombia and Brazil.   In 2010 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted new guidance for publicly traded companies, requiring companies to disclose climate change risks, such as physical risks to a company’s assets and supply chains. 

Disclosing these risks will create much needed transparency to help investors understand how companies’ supply chains, and the communities that support them, could be impacted by increasingly extreme weather and other likely results of climate change.

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The final results of the referendum in southern Sudan were released on February 7, with 98.83 percent of southerners voting for independence. The people in southern Sudan are jubilant. After years of fighting for self-determination the day has finally arrived; and it has finally come through a peaceful and credible democratic process.

That same day, Sudanese President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir wasted no time and officially accepted the final results. And President Obama offered a congratulatory statement and announced the intention of the United States to formally recognize Southern Sudan as a sovereign, independent state in July 2011.

Many southern Sudanese believe that independence will unlock a prosperous future for their children. They have heard promises from policymakers for years that the region will be transformed from one of the poorest places on earth to a breadbasket of Africa. Oxfam staff asked southern Sudanese about their hopes for the future. Watch the video below to see and hear what they had to say.

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