April 16, 2014
AUSTIN, Texas —The proportion of
land used to cultivate shade grown coffee, relative to the total land area of
coffee cultivation, has fallen by nearly 20 percent globally since 1996,
according to a new study by scientists from The University of Texas at Austin
and five other institutions.
The study's authors say the global
shift toward a more intensive style of coffee farming is probably having a
negative effect on the environment, communities and individual farmers.
"The paradox is that there is
greater public interest than ever in environmentally friendly coffee, but where
coffee production is expanding across the globe, it tends to be very
intensive," says Shalene Jha, assistant professor in The University of
Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and lead author of the study
published April 16 in the journal BioScience.
Traditional shade grown coffee is
cultivated under a diverse canopy of native forest trees in dense to moderate
shade. Though some of the forest understory is cleared for farming, a rich web
of plant and animal life remains. As a result, shade grown coffee plantations
provide corridors for migrating birds to move between forest fragments, attract
and support economically valuable pollinators such as bees and bats, and
provide ecosystem services such as filtering water and air, stabilizing soil
during heavy rains, storing carbon and replenishing soil nutrients.
In this latest study, the
researchers found that total global production of shade grown coffee has
increased since 1996, but the area of land used for non shade coffee has
increased at a much faster rate, resulting in shade grown coffee falling from
43 percent of total cultivated area to 24 percent.
"We were surprised that despite
two decades of growth in public awareness of where coffee comes from and the
different ways to manage it for biodiversity, shade grown coffee only seems to
be grown in a few regions," says Jha. "The shifts aren't what we
would expect based on what we see on the shelves in the U.S."
Percentage (%) of the cultivated
coffee area managed under different technology or shade levels. Diverse shade
has a closed or nearly closed canopy (more than 40% cover), with 10 or more
species of shade trees. Scant shade has a minimal but existing canopy (1%–40%
cover) and usually 1 or 2 species of shade trees (all with fewer than 10
species). Sun coffee has no shade or shade trees in the production area.
Abbreviations: ha, hectares; km, kilometers. Source: The data are from the 2010
data set from FAO (2014).
In the United States, the market for
specialty coffee, which includes organic and shade grown varieties, has grown
rapidly during the past decade. Across most U.S. distributors, sales of
specialty coffee rose more than 75 percent by economic value from 2000 to 2008.
In 2012, specialty coffees accounted for 37 percent of U.S. coffee sales by
volume and nearly half by economic value, an estimated $30 billion to $32
billion.
The study also found that since
1990, the land area under coffee cultivation has contracted in Africa and
expanded in Asia. Within Asia, Vietnam and Indonesia have had the largest
increases in coffee production during that time. Most of the new production is
done in an intensive style.
This more intensive style is
characterized by clearing forests or pasture for cultivation, increasing the
density of plantings and switching to a variety of coffee called Robusta that
tolerates full sun. Robusta is a lower-quality coffee than the other major
variety sold around the world, Arabica. The two strains are often blended to
produce instant coffee.
Jha and colleagues say the shifting
trends toward Asia and a more intensive style of farming are driven by a
dramatic drop in global coffee prices in recent years. To remain profitable,
some growers have moved, seeking lower land and labor costs and higher
short-term yields.
But there are hidden costs to this
more intensive style. Full sun coffee plantations often result in
deforestation, loss of biodiversity and soil depletion while leaving
communities more vulnerable to flooding and landslides.
"Intensive coffee production is
not sustainable," says Jha. "You exhaust the soil and after a couple
of decades, it can no longer grow coffee. On the other hand, the oldest coffee
farms in the world have thrived for centuries because the forest replenishes
the soil for them."
Farmers doing intensive coffee
farming also earn lower prices for their product.
Because the up-front costs of
getting certified to sell specialty coffees can be expensive, Jha and
colleagues encourage government agencies, conservation groups and aid
organizations to partner with farmers to develop strategies to get more farmers
into shade grown coffee production.
Some of the data used in this study
came from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and from
interviews with coffee authorities, government agencies and private
corporations.
Jha's co-authors are Christopher
Bacon (Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Santa Clara
University), Stacy Philpott (University of California, Santa Cruz), V. Ernesto
Méndez (University of Vermont), Peter Läderach (International Center for
Tropical Agriculture, Nicaragua) and Robert Rice (Migratory Bird Center at the
Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute).
------
Read the study "Shade Coffee: Update on a Disappearing
Refuge for Biodiversity" (BioScience,
April 16, 2014) at: http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/04/14/biosci.biu038.full.pdf+html
For more
information, contact: Marc Airhart, College of Natural
Sciences, 512 232 1066; Shalene
Jha, Department of Integrative Biology, College of Natural Sciences.
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