Can Agroforestry Save Coffee from Climate Catastrophe?

Ah, coffee. Few of life’s simple pleasures compare to the revitalizing splendor of this umber nectar. Most would agree. With global coffee production increasing by millions of kilos every year, coffee is the second-most consumed beverage and the second-most traded commodity in the world after water and crude oil.

Now imagine a world where coffee no longer exists. Unthinkable as it may be, that may be our reality by 2050 unless we change the way coffee is produced. 

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What’s Bad for People is Bad for the Planet

Why the talk of coffee armageddon? Well, there’s a popular saying among the plant-based movement that ‘what’s good for people is good for the planet’ and vice versa. But the inverse of that is also true. 

Like the rest of the broken food system, coffee production claims a devastating toll on the environment. And ICYMI: the coffee trade is built on centuries of slave labour. One look at history will tell you all you need to know. Beyond that, modern-day investigations continue to reveal the systemic predatory practices the industry employs to trap millions of domestic workers and smallholder farmers in perpetual cycles of poverty and violence. 

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Starbucks is a prime example. Early 2024, a consumer advocacy group sued the corporate giant for committing “documented, severe human rights and labor abuses, including the use of child labor and forced labor as well as rampant and egregious sexual harassment and assault” in the countries where it sources its tea and coffee. Later the same year, workers in over 300 of the company’s U.S. stores went on strike to protest unfair labour practices, including low pay and retaliatory firings.

The coffee industry, against all its wishy-washy claims of ethics, is ruthless to the people it employs. But you have to give it props for one thing: its lack of discrimination. Anything is fair game in its destructive path to profit–including the land upon which they cultivate their precious commodity. 

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The Environmental Toll of Traditional Coffee Farming

The industrial food system is designed to specifically conceal how our food is made and where it comes from. This includes coffee. If you look closely and do a bit of research, it’s all in the language and images they use to market their products.

– David Pritchard, Birds and Beans Co-founder & Co-owner

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My biggest issue with coffee is that it’s terrible for the environment. Around the world we collectively drink 2 billion cups a day, yet nobody understands the consequences of that level of consumption. 

According to the WWF, entire soccer fields worth of forest have been cut down to grow that coffee, just in the past hour we’re having this conversation. If people knew that, I think they would start thinking about [coffee] differently. If they knew that there were 10-11g of pesticides in every kilogram of beans they bought at the supermarket–some so toxic that they’re illegal in the EU–they’d probably make different choices. 

But they don’t know. And it doesn’t help that the industry practices greenwashing.

– Kasper Hülsen, Slow Chief Commercial Officer

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Corporate marketing and PR may paint a flattering image of big-name coffee brands, but you don’t grow any company to the gargantuan size of, say, Starbucks, without some sort of cost. Below, we’ll look at four key ways in which that cost is being sorely paid by the planet: through deforestation, biodiversity loss, agrochemical pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.

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Deforestation

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Contrary to the more “marketable” image of a sunny little family farm, most coffee available on the market comes from industrial coffee plantations. These are massive monoculture operations that are optimized for one thing and one thing only: maximizing yield in the fastest time to fuel profits. They’re essentially factory farms for coffee. 

A key issue here is that similar to animal agriculture, building these coffee plantations requires mass deforestation of land–half of which is illegal where the coffee supply chain is concerned. 

Naturally as both consumption and production increase, so does loss of forest. Some may argue that this is a necessary consequence of expanding the market, but the last thing our too-warm atmosphere needs is more CO₂. Worse, cutting down trees also initiates a devastating domino effect on Earth’s biodiversity. 

"When you remove the forest, you lose the foundation on which all wildlife thrives,” remarks Kasper Hülsen, Slow’s CCO. 

He goes on, “Without birds and wildlife to control insects, farmers turn to pesticides. These chemicals erode the soil, which makes growing healthy crops much harder. So to fix this, they apply synthetic fertilizers. But then these fertilizers end up polluting the groundwater and surrounding land. So you see how [monoculture] creates a vicious cycle, a negative spiral in which everything dies over time.”

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Biodiversity Loss

Hülsen isn’t just exaggerating for dramatic effect. Science makes it very clear that loss of wildlife and biodiversity–especially at a grand scale–spells disaster for Earth’s ecosystems. And by extension, for us humans.

Many of the forests in coffee-growing countries are considered biodiversity “hotspots”. They’re home to a rich assortment of tropical plant and animal species, from the tiniest, soil-dwelling microorganisms to important pollinators like bees and migratory songbirds. Though we rarely appreciate their live-giving functions, we rely on every single one of these organisms to provide food, clean air, and water. To kill them off, even inadvertently, is to risk our very survival.

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Think of it this way: biodiversity is like a woven net. You cut holes in some areas, and over time, the holes get bigger until the whole net weakens and inevitably falls apart. 

And after all the holes that humans have poked in the Coffee Belt’s biodiversity to favour monoculture farming, decades of declining coffee yields and record-high market prices should come as no surprise. How can anyone expect the land to provide when we starve it of its essential elements and nutrients?

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‍Agrochemicals in Traditional Coffee Farming

Speaking of nutrients, let’s talk about synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Industrial farmers apply these cheap chemicals in droves. And it goes without saying that these compounds make water, soil, animals, and people alike very, very sick. 

Coffee is grown in over 70 countries around the world, but the lion’s share comes out of sunny Brazil. Here, pesticide use in coffee production has skyrocketed 190% in a single decade, culminating in the application of roughly 38 million kilograms every year. To make matters worse, the country approved 475 new pesticides in 2019. Over a third of these are so toxic they’re banned in the EU. 

In 2022, researchers at the University of Copenhagen showed that exposure to pesticide use is linked to health risks ranging “from skin disorders, respiratory problems, to high blood pressure, organ damage, cancer and cardiovascular disease.” These were studied in coffee farmers with prolonged, direct exposure; but even as consumers at the tail end of the supply chain, we’re not in the clear. Commercial producers use 10-11g of agrochemicals to produce every one kilogram of coffee, and bioaccumulation, which occurs when harmful chemicals build up in living organisms over time, is a real concern.

‍Synthetic fertilizers follow a similar storyline: sick water, plants, animals, and people. On top of that they also emit nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

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Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Lastly, we can’t talk about coffee production without mentioning emissions. We’ll stick to just CO₂ for the sake of brevity.

Research shows that 15.33 kg is the average carbon footprint for every one kilogram of conventionally produced coffee exported from Brazil and Vietnam to the U.K. Multiply it by the 178 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee produced in a year, it quickly becomes painfully clear just how harmful humanity’s caffeine addiction is on Earth’s climate. Obviously, this number will fluctuate depending on export location, but it’s pretty safe to use it as a baseline since most coffee consumption occurs in the Global North.

(It’s worth noting that 15.33 kg doesn’t account for milk, which also has a massive environmental footprint. So if you prefer your café au lait, I have some bad news for you.)

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Where do these emissions come from? In a nutshell: don’t be fooled by the quick-and-easy illusion of convenience culture. The coffee life cycle is long, globe-spanning, and powered by fossil fuels. This TED-Ed video does a great job breaking it down.

Good news is on the horizon, however. The same research reveals that sustainable production methods–such as transporting coffee via cargo ships instead of freight planes and reducing agrochemical inputs–can lower the industry’s emissions by as much as 77%. Which brings us to the star features of this article!

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Forest-Grown Coffee is Climate-Smart Coffee

If you’ve been holding your breath as you read; don’t worry, we’re about to turn a positive corner. The transition to more sustainable and regenerative methods of production is well underway in pockets of the coffee world. And with climate change putting pressure on the rest of the industry, it’s only a matter of time until this becomes the new normal.

Without further ado, meet the mould-breaking companies pioneering your new favourite coffee: Slow and Birds and Beans.

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How Agroforestry Outshines Monoculture Farming in Coffee Production

Remember those industrial coffee plantations? Danish-based Slow is transforming these degraded lands into lush agroforests where wildlife, smallholder farmers, and coffee crops flourish. 

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“Monocropping degrades soil health to the point where it becomes very difficult to grow new coffee. That’s why some farmers are selling or abandoning these monoculture farms,” explains Hülsen. “We adopt these farms and essentially rebuild the natural ecosystem from scratch.” 

But restoring life on eroded farmland is no simple task. To ensure “this isn’t just some corporate plan that came out of an office in Copenhagen”, to borrow Hülsen’s words, Slow enlisted the help of organizations like the University of Helsinki to develop a meticulous, research-backed ‘forest manual’ to guide their on-the-ground work. (Which they actually do themselves, by the way. 90% of their diverse, 200-person team are based in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Laos where their farms operate.) 

Here’s how it works.

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Hülsen shares, “At Slow, we plant between 150 to 400 trees per hectare on each of our coffee farms. The number depends on each location, because in some places like Vietnam, the soil can’t support more than 150 trees to begin with. So we plant all these trees, and they help sequester carbon, restore soil health, and provide important canopy cover. Coffea is actually a shade plant, so all of that helps us grow better coffee while lowering our environmental impact. 

But we specifically wanted to restore and conserve biodiversity. So again, we start with trees; our team incorporates 20 different types of trees on each of our farms, including endangered tree species. We make sure to cultivate them in a way that creates these four canopy layers–between 2 to 5 meters, 5 to 10 meters, 15 and up to 20 meters–because that’s what’s needed to mimic the natural habitat for birds. 

Then to encourage their return, we plant a lot of fruit trees. Fruit trees are insect magnets. And with insects come birds, so they’re a good ‘cheat code’ for bringing back pollinators quickly. As the forest grows, the foundation for natural habitat expands, and you start to see bigger wildlife return too. A year ago, one of our farm’s wildlife cams showed a leopard cat. We saw it both day and night, so we knew it didn’t take a wrong turn during a hunt or anything like that. It lived there, in our forest. That was really gratifying to see.”

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As you can see, whereas monoculture disrupts the natural interconnectedness of Earth’s ecosystems, agroforestry nurtures it. Restoring these broken links in biodiversity reaps crucial benefits such as:

• Carbon sequestration
• Lower air and soil temperatures
• Adverse weather protection for crops
• Reduced water runoff and soil evaporation
• Less reliance on agrochemicals (creatures like birds, bats, and spiders are nature’s pest control)
• Improved soil fertility 

Let’s make one thing clear, however. Agroforestry may now be garnering more attention as the solution to humanity’s agricultural woes, but it’s far from being a radical new trend or even an invention of modern science. (Though in Slow’s case, it certainly benefited.) This farming method has been practiced by Indigenous communities around the world for centuries. 

Even coffee, as a native shade plant, was traditionally grown under the protection of trees before mass industrialization took over. It still is, in some places. You just have to know where to look.

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Bird-Friendly Coffee: The Environmental Gold Standard?

Shade-grown coffee certainly isn’t new to Toronto-based David Pritchard and Madeleine Pengelley, who’ve been sourcing and roasting beans from certified bird-friendly farms for more than two decades.

“Back when we first started Birds and Beans, people were mostly just curious about our ‘alternative’ coffee. There wasn’t a deep understanding of the importance of habitat conservation in coffee-making,” shares Pritchard. “We didn’t understand either, initially. It wasn’t until we got into native plant gardening and saw how much wildlife these plants supported that we started to realize: the way we are living is just not conducive to life. Including how we grow our food.” 

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Indeed, habitat loss has dealt a devastating blow to North American bird populations, which have declined by 30% in just the last few decades. This carries grave consequences, as migratory birds play an important role as pest controllers and pollinators in healthy ecosystems–especially in the tropics, where coffee is cultivated.

Enter ‘bird-friendly’ coffee. This certification tends to–ahem–fly under the radar compared to its “Fairtrade” counterpart. However its ecological significance cannot be overstated. For starters, it was created by Smithsonian scientists in the 90s with the explicit intention to “conserve habitat and protect migratory songbirds.” As such, all coffee producers that want to obtain this certification must:

1. Grow coffee in combination with foliage cover and tree diversity, to create suitable habitat for birds and other wildlife.
2. Be 100% organic, to ensure no harmful pesticides reach wildlife (or people). 

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Despite these clear environmental and human health benefits, you’ll scarcely see any brands boast the bird-friendly stamp of approval. Birds and Beans remains the sole provider of this sustainable (and Fairtrade) coffee in Canada more than 30 years after the certification was created. Hopefully with conscious consumerism on the rise, that will soon change.

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What’s Good for People is Good for the Planet

At the top of the article, I touched on the link between human suffering and ecological destruction. It’s evident that what hurts one, tends to hurt the other. 

But the flip is also true. You probably already see it.

In the context of coffee, the ecological benefits of shade-grown systems like agroforestry are twofold. Not only do they help farmers sustain their work against the unpredictability of climate change (and allow us aficionados to continue enjoying our espressos), they can also help fight climate change itself. 

For example, Slow is a carbon-negative business. The power of their coffee farms is such that they absorb more carbon than their entire production value chain releases. And with their SBTi-backed plan to become net zero by 2030, Slow is on the trajectory to fully decarbonize (and humanize) the coffee industry’s destructive business model.

“Our mission from the get-go was to demonstrate that it’s possible to change the broken food system into something better for both people and the environment,” concludes Hülsen. “It’s easy to point fingers at the consumer and say, ‘This is only their responsibility, they need to change their behavior.’ Consumers do have a responsibility; their spending power influences the market. But the coffee industry also needs to wake up, take a hard look in the mirror, and acknowledge their responsibility by saying, ‘We need to stop producing coffee that harms the planet.’

So that’s why we are here. It’s absolutely possible to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, and we show people every day.”

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The science is clear. Climate change is pushing Earth and all who live on her–coffee, birds, and humans alike–onto a precarious edge. It’s essential that as consumers we put our spending power where it counts. So forget Starbucks. By opting to support coffee companies like Slow and Birds and Beans, who are actively investing in agroforestry-grown, sustainable coffee, we can prevent the impending plummet over that edge.

And perhaps in the process, we can save what really matters. 

The spark of awe that coloured David Pritchard’s voice captures it all:

“The migrations. They’re absolutely amazing, you know. These tiny birds–some of them weigh almost nothing–fly thousands of miles every year to return to the same place. They know where home is, because they practice site fidelity at both ends of their trip. It’s kind of miraculous when you think about it. Preserving that beauty is absolutely worthwhile. And it’s as easy as changing the coffee you drink.”

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Liked this article? Share to raise awareness about the importance of buying bird-friendly or shade-grown coffee, and make sure to check out Birds and Beans and Slow’s incredible  conservation work at the links below:

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Find out more about Slow

Website: https://www.slowforest.com/ 

Instagram: @slowforestcoffee

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/slowforestcoffee/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/slowforest/ 

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Find out more about Birds and Beans

Website: ​​https://birdsandbeans.ca/ 

Instagram: @birdsandbeans

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BirdsAndBeans.ca 

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