April 2000

Media

Environment

Labour

Health

Background

Reviews

Editorial

Letters to the Editors

The Cost of Coffee

Few Canadians consider the environmental impact of their coffee habit. Yet the increasing popularity at home and abroad of this most mundane of consumer goods is causing major environmental, economic, and social turmoil in the countries of northern Latin America where it serves as a major cash crop and source of income.

The Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) reports that over the past two decades, dramatic changes in coffee production techniques have led to significant biodiversity loss, habitat fragmentation, pesticide poisoning and soil erosion south of our borders. According to a 1996 report released by NRDC and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, an industrial transformation of the coffee sector from Colombia to Mexico threatens the traditional agro-ecosystem which had been functioning sustainably for more than a century.

The most notable change is the shift from shade coffee to sun coffee. Traditionally, coffee grows best in dappled sunlight conditions under a canopy of foliage provided by a variety of plants. As coffee developed into a major cash crop during the 20th century, the northern Latin American countryside became dotted with small-scale shade coffee farms which served as habitat for many species of wildlife, especially migratory birds.

However, in the last two decades, much of the shade coffee production has been squeezed out by mechanized, monoculture-based operations producing coffee plants which thrive in direct sunlight, significantly cutting into migratory bird habitat and leading to increased erosion of soil that has been polluted by escalating fertilizer use. Of the 6.9 million acres planted with coffee in Mexico, Colombia, Central America and the Caribbean through the early 1990s, between 30% and 40% have been converted to "sun" coffee. The security of the lands and livelihoods of small producers are being affected by the transformation to more intensified production.

In response, a growing number of small producers, marketers, and consumers have taken action to defend and encourage more sustainable and environmentally sound methods of coffee production. Agricultural cooperatives throughout northern Latin America are beginning to address the environmental impacts of coffee production by requiring a minimum of shade cover from members. Also, environmentalists in the U.S. and elsewhere have introduced marketing strategies based on organic coffee, social justice, and the payment of fair commodity prices to small producers in Latin America. As a result, consumers now can choose from a growing array of coffees produced by a variety of systems. Yet information about these choices has been slow to spread throughout Canada, the United States and other major coffee importing nations.

The fight to create incentives for sustainable and environmentally sensitive coffee production is being joined by concerned American organizations such as NRDC, the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, Conservation International and the Rainforest Alliance. Tactics include the development of environmental labelling criteria as well as the creation of strategic alliances with coffee roasters, retailers and trading companies. By educating consumers about how their purchasing decisions affect regional and global economies and ecosystems, these organizations hope to use coffee as a tool for raising awareness about the dangers of unsustainable agriculture throughout the developing world.