WATTS WORKS - DIRECT TRADE AND ORGANIC CERTIFICATION

Recently, a customer of ours asked about Organic Certifications and how it related to Direct Trade coffees...

"There have long been rumors of coffees, particularly in Africa, that are grown with organic farming practices (no pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides) but cannot be sold as Certified Organic coffee due to lack of the actual certification, presumably for reasons of cost. How does Intelligentsia define and assure "healthy environmental practices" in the absence of a certification?"

Geoff's Answer

It is most definitely true that there is a lot of coffee grown in situations where zero chemical fertilizer, fungacide, herbacide, or pesticides are applied, but where the coffee carries no certifications of any kind. Most of the time these are "organic by default" coffees where the farmer cannot access or afford chemicals, so it’s not a choice to be organic, but simple necessity.

Economics are critical here. I would surmise that most of the coffee farms that fit this description fall into the category of "non-managed farms," meaning that the farmers do not give much input at all to the trees and just simply collect cherries when they appear. They do some weeding with machetes from time to time and cut down unhealthy trees, but they do not fertilize or prune trees, and they are not really cultivating the coffee... just harvesting.

Normally these are very small sized farms, and due to depleted soils, old trees, and lack of input, the yields in these scenarios are very low. Unless the farmers are part of a cooperative that can pay the costs of organic certification, there is no way they would ever certify, since the cost of certifying could easily be more than the gross income received after selling the coffee.

If they are a part of a cooperative, then the coop sometimes will decide that they want to pursue certification to help capture higher premiums for the coffees. But even this can be challenging, since so many coffee cooperatives are not fiscally sound and lack funding. If the bank account is lean, then paying for a certification can make it difficult for the coop to finance the harvest. They must pay members some portion up front for the coffee, and financing the harvest is often the largest obstacle that the cooperatives face.

So there are plenty of examples of organic yet uncertified coffee production, and much of the coffee we buy from Rwanda and Ethiopia fits the bill. It is, however, a double-edged sword. Most of these farmers would prefer to use a fertilizer if they could afford it because it could potentially triple their yields (thereby tripling income) and make the trees stronger. When I was in Rwanda recently, I asked a group of Rusenyi farmers what their primary need was right now, and they all answered "fertilizer". In a case like this I would definitely advocate using fertilizer. I do not believe that the environmental advantage gained by non-application of chemical fertilizer comes anywhere close to matching the human livelihood and social costs that result from poverty. I am convinced that discriminate and conservative use of fertilizer is environmentally sound, at least as an expedient means to right the ship, so to speak.

Pesticides and fungicides are normally not needed at high-altitude farms, and weeding is done by hand or with machete. Herbicide use is, in my experience, extremely rare in these small farm settings. Pests common to warmer, more humid environments aren't a problem at 1600 meters, and the likelihood of fungus also decreases the higher up you get.

Fact is, a lot of the "problem farms" (the type that make us all want to promote organic farming) are medium or larger farms in more developed countries and at lower altitudes. My personal theory is that there are some places coffee was not meant to be grown, and the diseases and pests that plague coffee trees in these lowland or unsuitable areas are nature’s way of saying "please grow something else here". Many of the farms we work with are conspicuously free of the need for pest/fungus control, but do indeed use fertilizer, making them ineligible for Organic certification.

There is cause for much debate about the organic certification in situations where farmers can theoretically access and afford either chemical fertilizer OR certification. A place like Finca Malacara in El Salvador would need to make a choice. Is transitioning to fully certified organic a smart decision?

Most farmers will tell you "no way, Jose". In general, farms experience a significant drop in yield and rise in labor costs when switching to organic. It is hard to run a productive organic farm, especially on a medium/large scale. The amount of organic material needed to give the trees enough nutrition to be productive is massive. The amount of additional labor needed to make it work is also significant.

At the heart of the problem is a lack of market support for organics. The current "standard" premium for green organic coffee is + $0.15. That’s not nearly enough in most cases to balance additional profit vs. loss of yield and higher input costs, including the cost of certifying. So in a strictly economic analysis, the farmer will normally lose by converting to organic. Factor in the three-year waiting period during which the coffee is "in transition" and can’t legally be sold as organic, and now you’ve got another obstacle that discourages farmers from going organic. It is a certainty in my opinion that the premiums for organic coffee need to rise significantly (triple, at least) in order to make conversion to organic an attractive proposition for those farmers who are in a position to do it.

The other question that begs asking is: What is the difference in environmental impact between a that of a well-managed coffee farm that uses fertilizer and practices either zero or very limited, highly discriminate pest/disease control (spot application when needed using the least impactful ingredients) and that of a fully organic farm? I don’t have the answer, but nearly every agronomist I’ve discussed this with has felt that coffee farms which practice "responsible methods" (i.e., approved types of applications, used minimally and with precision, along with full tracking/record keeping) for husbandry and plant management are perfectly sound from an environmental perspective. I’m in the process of collecting some hard data to answer this question.

A good place to make a comparison might be Las Brumas in Nicaragua. Out of roughly 50 contributing members, 8 of them are certified organic. All farm in the same general area, under the same general conditions. It would be very useful to do an environmental impact study there comparing the organic vs. conventional, since these farms are mostly in a rustic shade setting, well forested, and the producers who are not organic do not qualify because they are using inorganic fertilizers (but not pesticides or herbicides). In general I look at all of those farms in Las Brumas as environmentally sound, both the certified and non-certified. But having some hard data to back up that assessment would be useful.

Another thing to think about is the reason or motivation behind organic farming. It is likely agreed that the number one reason to farm organically is to preserve ecosystem health—flora, fauna, insect and wildlife, water purity, etc—on the farm itself. Along those same lines, protecting farm workers from exposure to pesticides or chemicals is a key. The other motivation comes from consumer desire to avoid personally ingesting chemicals.

When we talk about organic coffee, the last motivation mentioned becomes basically irrelevant. There is no apparent health advantage to be gained by sticking to certified organic coffee. Unlike apples or pears or carrots, coffee is consumed in a way where even if pesticides were sprayed liberally by planes onto the crop, no residue would make it to the consumer. It is the seed of the coffee that gets consumed (after removing the skin,washing, sun-drying, removing the protective parchment, roasting at 450 degrees F, and brewing with 200 degree water). Perhaps this is debatable, but the science I’ve seen is very convincing.

Farm worker protection is critical, which is why pesticides are a no-no. It is also the pesticides and the herbicides that are of biggest concern when talking about flora, fauna, insects, etc. So those are things we focus on when it comes to meeting our Direct Trade requirements for environmental health, along with the treatment of the used fermentation and transport water (which I believe is the #1 biggest environmental issue for most small farms).

As a roaster we also need to consider the efficacy of the certifications. I’ve seen firsthand many cases where the system is fundamentally flawed from the outset – where, for instance, the quotas are defined using a formula that calculates based on rough measurements of land area without accounting for actual (or more precisely estimated) yield. This allows farms with low productivity per hectare to purchase coffee outside their farm and include it with the certified lot, jeopardizing the integrity of the organic certification.

A new development in all of this has been the proposed change in USDA organic laws that would require individual farms, regardless of size, to be independently certified. This would cause the cost of certifying to skyrocket far beyond the means of most coops and small farms. Historically the rules have allowed cooperatives to certify large groups of farmers using a system of internal control. A team of agents from within the coop manage visits to every farm and conduct inspections, while the certifier simply does spot checks on a handful of farms and coordinates with the internal control group during the audit. This change to the USDA rules would mean the external inspector would need to visit each of the farms and would effectively cripple the ability of most small farmers to offer certified organic coffee.

In conclusion:

Yes, much of the coffee we buy in Rwanda and Ethiopia is grown without application of any pesticide, fungicide, or herbicide—and in most cases also without any fertilizer.

Yes, I would call Finca Malacara an environmentally sound and sustainable farm. They are extremely careful and judicious about how they apply any treatments, and their farm is high enough in altitude that it doesn’t have much trouble with insects or fungus anyhow. The owners have made the decision that they cannot support the farm’s development, including all the social programs they run (on-the-farm daycare for children of workers, a health clinic, and a full-time school) unless they produce enough coffee to have an efficiency of scale amidst quickly rising labor costs. Going organic would dramatically reduce their income, at least in the short term. And if their environmental footprint is controlled and sustainable in nature, motivation to move to fully organic practices is minimal to non-existent.

I had a conversation with an agronomy/sustainability professor from UC Davis while we were in Long Beach at the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s yearly trade show. He was interested in our "environmental health" component for Direct Trade as well. Basically, I explained that DT is constructed to look at sustainability in coffee farming as a whole. We assess social, environmental, and economic factors and their interactions and our model is actively evolving. The environmental component right now is perhaps the least well-defined of all the DT requirements, and that reflects our determination to get farmers on their feet economically and build a tested, working system before toughening our stance on what is acceptable with regard to biodiversity and fertilizer use.

He understood the logic. Our biggest priority right now under the environmental header is water contamination, which I identified earlier as one of the most serious immediate environmental hazards on a coffee farm. Second is use of pesticides and herbicides. That’s what we focus on. But there is every intention to expand our scope and consult with environmental experts to make the environmental component of DT more sophisticated and intense. It’s a process—a crawl before you walk endeavor, where we want to ensure farmers the ability to earn a living from their coffee production and become economically secure. Then we can tighten some screws here and there, and bring them along with us. I don’t believe that things could work any other way.