Climate-Smart Training Made Easy: The c&c toolbox Trainer Section with Ready-to-use Materials is Online Now
The Trainer Section inside the c&c toolbox is here – a new resource designed for extensionists, farmer organizations and cooperatives, NGOs, and institutions who provide direct support to farmers. It offers ready-to-use training modules, facilitation guides, and downloadable templates that help trainers organize workshops, run field demonstrations, and guide farmer groups through climate adaptation practices in a structured and effective way.
The Trainer Section helps turn climate knowledge into action. It provides trainers with materials, step-by-step guidance, and examples to support farming communities in adapting to climate change – and to scale these proven solutions across the coffee sector.
From Concept to Action: The Story of the c&c toolbox
When we launched the c&c toolbox, our goal was to make climate-smart practices accessible to farmers everywhere. The toolbox was designed as a digital platform offering step-by-step instructions on proven practices, from soil management to pest control, that can help farmers adapt to the changing climate. Importantly, it was built as an open resource, available free of charge to anyone in the sector.
Since its launch, the toolbox has been continuously improved and expanded. Farmers, trainers, and organizations are already using it to find practical solutions that address local challenges. The Trainer Section adds resources specifically tailored for trainers, making the toolbox even more relevant for all levels of support in the coffee sector.
Why a Trainer Section?
Trainers play a pivotal role in contextualizing practices, demonstrating their application, and ensuring long-term adoption. The new section equips them with:
- Capacity building: Step-by-step guidance that can be integrated into ongoing training programs such as workshops, farmer field schools, and cooperative advisory services.
- Structured guidance: Resources organized in a clear framework that supports adaptation from assessment to implementation and evaluation.
- Resource leverage: Ready-to-use trainer materials save time and effort in content development.
- Collaboration: A shared knowledge base that enables different organizations to harmonize their approaches and create more consistent interventions across regions.
How It Works
The Trainer Section is explicitly designed for those who support farmers in the field. It is structured around c&c’s 5-step climate change adaptation approach. Resources are grouped by step so extension teams can pick up materials at the right stage of their programs. Each step is linked to a dedicated subpage within the toolbox, offering hands-on examples, practical tips, and downloadable templates that trainers can integrate directly into their activities. These are the five steps to follow:
- Setting the scene – understand the local context and identify climate challenges together with farmers.
- Assessment of climate change challenges – analyze climate risks and opportunities for the specific region and farming systems.
- Adaptation planning – design adaptation strategies and action plans based on the assessment results.
- Validation and implementation of adaptation options – test and implement the selected measures in collaboration with farmers.
- Lessons learned and understanding progress – evaluate, document and share lessons learned to enable scaling and continuous improvement.
A Strategic Tool for the Sector
The launch of the Trainer Section marks a shift in how the c&c toolbox serves the coffee sector. No longer a purely farmer-facing resource, it has become a strategic instrument for scaling impact across the value chain.
With the new Trainer Section, the c&c toolbox evolves from a farmer-facing resource to a strategic tool for the entire sector, supporting the delivery of climate-smart solutions at scale. – Anika Nicolaudius, Project Manager coffee&climate toolbox
For coffee companies, traders, roasters, NGOs, and public institutions, the Trainer Section offers a practical way to strengthen their sustainability and farmer support programs. By using the same structured framework and materials, organizations can align their training approaches, avoid duplicating efforts, and build on proven methods. This creates more consistency across regions, supports comparability of results, and helps accelerate collective progress toward resilient coffee production.
Looking Ahead
At c&c, we believe that the future of coffee depends on the resilience of its farmers. The Trainer Section is one step in strengthening the systems that support them. By equipping trainers with the right tools, we multiply the impact of every training session, every cooperative program, and every sustainability initiative.
The challenges are great, but so are the opportunities. With coordinated efforts and shared resources, the coffee sector can rise to the challenge of climate change and ensure a sustainable future for coffee and the people who grow it.
👉 Explore the new Trainer Section here: www.toolbox.coffee/trainer-tools
Currently, the Trainer Section is available in English, and additional languages will be added soon. Users are also invited to download the c&c toolbox app to their device and subscribe to push notifications to stay updated as new content and translations become available.
