Why You Should Buy Organic Coffee

1. Why You Should Buy Organic Coffee By: Matt Fluck and Akiko Mack

2. Organic Coffee • Organic coffee is that which is cultivated and/or processed without the use of chemicals of any sort including insecticides, artificial coloring or flavoring and additives. • Coffee beans are seeds from berries that grow on shade-loving understory bushes. These bushes need the shade of mature trees, the same trees that provide habitat and food for many birds and insects. • Coffee plantations have been called “one of the most sustainable and environmentally benign agroecosystems in Central America.” Traditional Coffee Plantation

3. Benefits of Shade-Grown Coffee Shade trees • protect the understory coffee plants from rain and sun • help maintain soil quality • reduce the need for weeding • aid in pest control. • Organic matter from the shade trees also provides a natural mulch, which reduces the need for chemical fertilizers, reduces erosion, contributes important nutrients to the soil, and prevents metal toxicities. Photo Showing a Traditional Coffee Plantation where shade coffee is grown. The picture shows small coffee shrubs underneath a forest of trees.

4. Sun- Tolerant Coffee Producers • Starting as early as the 1970’s, coffee growers began breeding plants that prospered in the full-sun, rather than the shade. • With sun-tolerant coffee bushes, growers could remove trees, slightly increasing the profitable area of their fields and the yield of each plant. • Sun-tolerant coffee plants require a steady diet of agricultural chemicals. Fertilizer- there is no leaf-litter to enrich the soil Herbicides- due to sun exposure, weeds invade the fields Fungicides- also important to stop growth of fungi • These chemicals affect the health of plantation workers and the health of the wildlife that live in the plantation.

5. Migratory Birds and Coffee Common Migratory Bird Species • Traditional coffee plantations can be thought of as modified forest habitats. • In the midst of altered and shrinking habitat in both North and Latin America, migratory birds have found a sanctuary in the forest-like environment of traditional coffee plantations • The studies that have been conducted have found that the diversity of migratory birds plummets when coffee is converted from shade to sun. • A leading team of bird surveyors around Mexico and the Caribbean Basin, found that cacao and coffee plantations supported the largest numbers of forest-dependent migratory birds of any agricultural habitats. • In the regions most heavily used by migratory birds, coffee plantation "forests" cover 2.7 million hectares, or almost half of the permanent cropland. This provides critical woodland habitat in mid-elevation areas where most large reserves have been destroyed. American Redstart Yellow-throated Warbler Blue-headed Vireo Black-throated Green Warbler

6. Why Care? The Decline of Migratory Birds Migratory birds play a major role in the health and functioning of ecosystems: • as consumers of insects (especially those that defoliate trees) • dispersers of seeds • as pollinators of flowers. • They are also of considerable value to regional economies. When forest birds eat insects, the result is greater tree growth and a longer period between insect outbreaks - services that may be worth as much as $5000 per year for each square mile of forest land. • Millions of people watch birds as a hobby and many of them flock to areas where birds concentrate, where they spend millions of dollars on ecotourism.

7. Major Coffee Companies • Starbucks:agreed to offer certified organic coffee in their 2,700 outlets only four days before planned demonstrations. (Even so, the outlet still buys fewer than 1 million pounds of this type of coffee, a mere 1% of the coffee it buys annually.) • Maxwell House, Folgers & Nestle: together they represent about half of U.S. coffee sales, but the executives of the company have not taken actions towards purchasing organic, shade-grown coffee.

8. Some Organic Coffee Companies

9. Sources • http://macserv.murdoch.edu.au/HK/research_interests/projects/east_timor/pictures/big_pics/slide • http://highered.mcgrawhill.com/sites/0072452706/student_view0/chapter/additional_case_studies.html#organic • http://natzoo.si.edu/conservationandscience/migratorybirds/fact_sheets/default.cfm?fxsht=1 • http://www/watershedradio.org/may2001/051101migra.htm • http://www.gcrio.org/CONSEQUENCES/vol3no1/songbirds.html • http://www.counterculturecoffee.com/sanctuary_info.htm#art1 • http://www.fordfound.org/publications/recent.articles/docs/Solution_57-62.pdf