Biography
Growing up in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina, Ezra Remer experienced the successes and failures of various post-Hurricane recovery initiatives. Inspired by his lived experiences, Remer founded the Dominica Coffee Revitalization Initiative (DCRI), a nonprofit which seeks to create a sustainable coffee industry on the island of Dominica following the devastation of Hurricane Maria.
Ezra holds a B.A. in Communications from the University of Miami and an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University. He served as Lead Communications Director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Haiti Initiative and Communications Specialist for World Coffee Research. In 2022, he received a US Student Fulbright Research Grant for Dominica. He was also named a Tulane Mellon Graduate Program in Community-Engaged Scholarship Fellow for the 2023-2024 academic year and awarded the 2025 Tulane ByWater Institute Scholarly Retreat Residency at A Studio in the Woods.
Project summary
Since the passage of Category Five Hurricane Maria in 2017, the nonprofit Dominica Coffee Revitalization Initiative (DCRI) has endeavored to create a sustainable coffee sector on the island. As a shade tree crop, coffee thrives under a forest canopy and requires fewer inputs than most agricultural products.
When planted in agroforestry systems, coffee is among the most resilient plants in the face of natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and landslides. This project envisions a profitable specialty coffee industry in Dominica that simultaneously insulates agriculturalists from the worst ravages of increasing climate change-driven disasters. To achieve these goals, attention must be paid to the built environment with an eye toward climate resiliency. This project seeks to construct a dual-purpose, climate-resilient coffee drying and nursery facility that can both withstand the ravages of hurricanes while reducing carbon emissions through solar drying techniques and energy generation.
