Modern farming techniques detrimental to tropical biodiversity
For many of us, the first thing that enters our minds when we wake up in the morning is how to get our hands on a cup of coffee. It doesn’t matter much where it comes from, how much it costs, or what lengths we have to go to in order to get it. All that matters is that we get that ever-so-good dose of caffeine.
For most of us, coffee comes from the Tim Horton’s or the Starbucks around the corner. It’s a stretch to consider the brew in our hands having ever come from a plant or to imagine the process by which the coffee bean comes to be prepared for consumption.
Traditionally, coffee has been grown in shaded environments. The shade in these coffee plantations comes from the upwards of 25 different tree species that are incorporated into the landscape. The trees provide innumerable benefits, and are key to the sustainability of the coffee plantation.
Firstly, trees do wonders in terms of adding nutrients to the soil. The leaves that fall off of trees rejuvenate the soil onto which they fall, and this greatly reduces- if not eliminates- the need to use fertilizer to achieve sustained yields from year to year. Another nutrient input occurs through the nitrogen-fixating activity of some of the trees that grow in the plantations. This is the process by which inorganic atmospheric nitrogen (N2) is converted into a form that plants (like coffee) can take up through their roots.
Trees also prevent soil erosion and the leaching of nutrients that can occur during tropical storms, and provide an essential habitat for countless species of animals and the prey that they depend upon. One of the most noted types of animals that these trees provide habitat for are birds.
Shade-coffee plantations have been found to provide habitat for upwards of 100 species of birds- consisting of both local birds and migrants- that spend the summer throughout North America and head south in the winter. Since the widespread advent of sun-grown coffee, many of these bird populations have been in serious decline. With the continued loss of primary-growth tropical forests for agriculture and development, shade coffee plantations may be the only hope for many species of birds, as well as other types of forest plants and animals.
In the early 1970s, coffee leaf rust, a fungal pathogen, first made its way from eastern locales to South America, and, more recently, to Central America. This caused widespread alarm among the coffee growing community. People feared that the more humid conditions in shade-coffee plantations would lead to the widespread loss of coffee crops as a result of this pathogen, and there was a shift from traditional coffee growing methods to a more modern monoculture-type system.
With the help of government aid programs, shade-coffee plantations throughout Latin America were changed to sun-coffee plantations. The type of coffee being grown was changed from the shade-tolerant Arabica variety to the Robusta variety, which produces coffee with a reportedly more bitter flavour, and lacks the refined flavours and aromas of coffee made from the Arabica bean.
The Robusta plantations lack all the benefits trees provide to shade-grown coffee, and therefore, require large inputs of fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides. While per capita harvests may exceed those of shade coffee plantations, levels of biodiversity in sun-grown coffee plantations are almost inconceivably low in comparison, and there are a myriad of negative impacts on the surrounding environment.
The scientific evidence is clear that shade-grown coffee plantations support significantly higher levels of biodiversity than sun-grown coffee plantations. It is also clear that shade-grown coffee plantations offer a sustainable way of life for coffee growers and the communities in which they live.
In a world where our actions and decisions have more and more of a planetary scope with every day that passes, it is important to consider the repercussions of our actions- and this includes the type of coffee that we drink. Let’s be real here, there’s nothing that’s going to stop us from drinking coffee, but by choosing to drink shade-grown coffee, we can send the message that we care about the sustainable and environmentally friendly production of the drink that means so much to us.