WATTS WORKS - DIRECT TRADE AND SHADE GROWN COFFEE

Geoff Watts explains the ins and outs of Shade Grown Coffee.

by Geoff Watts
July 5, 2007

Recently, a customer of ours asked about Shade Grown coffee and how it relates to our Direct Trade model...

"My friends and I have decided to only buy shade-grown coffee to help protect habitat. I was saddened to learn that Intelligentsia doesn’t offer it. Do you plan to offer shade-grown coffee?"

Geoff's Answer:

The majority of our Direct Trade coffees are grown under shade, but there can be quite a difference between the types of shade and the role the shade trees play in the surrounding ecosystem. For this reason I’d like to get more detailed about levels of shade and the many different ways in which the word is used today.

First, though, we need to define some terms:

Shade-Grown: Coffee grown under a canopy of partial to fully shaded forest canopy.

This is the most common definition. However, shade can be like snowflakes in that it varies qualitatively and quantitatively from farm to farm. The shade density (as measured using a fisheye lens shooting from the ground up to determine amount of filtration) along with the number and variety of different tree species are the key variables when assessing the quality of the shade.

It gets more confusing when one considers that shade-grown coffee is being promoted by many different organizations simultaneously, each with a slightly different objective. For example, the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has its own shade certification called "Bird Friendly". They, along with groups like Audubon are particularly interested in the viability of shaded coffee farms for providing suitable habitat for migratory birds. Accordingly, their shade criteria focus on the types of shade canopy that accomplish this goal.

Other certification organizations like Rainforest Alliance have their own standards. Many coffee companies and farms currently market coffee as "shade-grown" in the absence of any declared standard or certification. The "quality" portion of the coffee market promotes shade on farms because of its proven positive impact on the development of desirable acids and sugars in the coffee cherries, and the organic market lobbies for shade because it leads to more dynamic ecosystems that reduce the need for chemical fertilizer or herbicides.

So how to figure out what’s best as a consumer?

The following is a rough guide to different types of shade:

Rustic: the least intensive and rarest practice. Coffee shrubs are planted in the existing forest with little alteration of native vegetation. This is the least expensive practice, typically used on small family-owned farms.

Traditional Polyculture: deliberate integration of beneficial plants (fruits, vegetables, nuts, medicinal plants, etc.), resulting in greater species diversity than commercial polyculture. Crop diversification helps farmers when coffee prices are depressed.

Commercial Polyculture: similar to traditional polyculture, but some shade is removed to make room for more coffee shrubs and a distinct backbone species is generally planted with the coffee. Yields are higher but fertilizers and pesticides are usually needed.

Reduced or Specialized Shade: uses a single, pruned canopy species to provide shade. Coffee shrubs are planted more densely, and the farm has a manicured look. Since the over story consists of just one or two species, structural habitat diversity is reduced.

Full-Sun or Unshaded Monoculture: does away with the canopy completely. Unshaded, intensively-managed fields are highly productive when given necessary intensive agrochemical inputs. These farms have one objective: producing coffee for market, and they provide little or no habitat for animal life.

As you can see the range goes from pure forest to zero forest and includes everything in between. There are indeed patterns that exist based on country and farm size…for example, it is extremely rare to find a large-volume coffee farm with Rustic shade over their trees while smaller farms tend towards more forest. Small farmers in Mexico and Peru tend to grow coffee under lots of shade, whereas Kenyan and Rwandan farmers tend to have much less shade, regardless of how big their farms are.

Some of this is the result of history – those African countries have been deforested for decades as a result of extreme poverty, exponential population growth, and exploitation by colonial powers. There is a lot more land per capita in much of the Americas than in Africa, and it stands to reason that there are more trees.

Economics is another causal factor. For example, Costa Rica is one of the most developed countries in all of Latin America; costs of living are higher, land and labor are more expensive. Thus there is a huge pressure on coffee farmers to produce higher volumes. 1500 lbs of coffee per hectare can be economically sustainable in Nicaragua, but would probably mean bankruptcy in neighboring Costa Rica where they strive for triple that volume in order to have a profitable farm. Many farmers are jumping ship. In one area, Tres Rios, the acreage of coffee is decreasing by nearly 30% per year as the land is being sold for residential and commercial development. The result is more urban area, fewer farms…a glaring net loss in the environmental P&L.

In an effort to help coffee farmers survive economically, organizations like USAID have financed programs that help farmers plant non-traditional varietals of coffee that have better resistance to disease and offer higher yields. These "tougher" trees are also much more tolerant of sun than the traditional varietals and thus can be more densely planted in the absence of significant shade. Ironically, it is the countries that have had the most success with coffee in the last 50 years—Costa Rica, Colombia, and Kenya—that have been in a position to shift production over time towards these more potent varietals that can handle more sun (Caturra, Colombia, Ruiru 11). In today’s coffee world, what was once viewed as a huge advantage (greater productivity) is now a potential handicap (low shade).

So what should we take from all this? Perhaps the most important thing to remember about Direct Trade is that the model is all about pursuing maximum sustainability for the coffee farmer. This means we cannot simply isolate one specific component of sustainability to a lead position at the expense of others. A coffee farm with lots of shade that loses money every year and pays the workers below minimum wage is not sustainable. A farm that pays the workers well, has shade, and earns lots of profit but has no filtration for the water waste and ends up contaminating the river does not fit the bill. To really work and be viable for the future, a farm must be sustainable socially, environmentally, and economically. If one of these fails, the rest will eventually fail too.

This is why we believe it is extremely important to avoid dogma and consider the full picture holistically when thinking about any one of these issues. A consumer might fixate on shade and decide never to buy Rwandan coffee since there is very little shade there. How do you think a Rwandan farmer might feel about that? The whole country is deforested and has been for generations. Nearly every inch of arable land is being put into service to try to feed the people in what is one of the most densely populated and impoverished countries in all of Africa. Just over ten years removed from a horrifying genocide, the country is rebuilding and trying to position itself to move forward, and an impressive amount of international donor money has poured into the country to help build infrastructure and revitalize the coffee sector. Is it right of us to tell these farmers we will not support their efforts because they don’t have shade, when it is far beyond their means and the most pressing concern is basic survival? In Rwanda, the availability of shade is a future goal and a present impossibility. The prescription there is to build infrastructure in the form of organized cooperatives, washing stations, technical assistance, milling capacity, and financing mechanisms. Get the quality up, get some income coming in, accomplish organizational stability, and then dig into trying to re-forest the country.

For a contrast, let’s focus the lens on Peru for a moment. Peruvian farmers have plenty of challenges, but availability of land is not among them. There is a massive amount of natural, uninhabited forest in the Andes. Land titles are a rarity. It is common practice for families to squat on land and appropriate a parcel to farm, which usually means cutting down existing forest. Ten years later, when the soil has become less agreeable, the farmer moves on to a new parcel.

This practice is destroying the Andean forests, but there is indeed lots of shade. Some of this coffee is sold as shade grown, although it is harvested illegally in protected forest. That’s not what any of us are after.

Looking at El Salvador, there is real need to support the farms that have partial/managed shade (mostly Pepito or Inga trees). Many of them have forest on their land that they protect and do not farm. The owners of these farms are the last barrier between the developers and the increasingly valuable land, and if the farms were to become economically unviable and become sold, you can bet your last dollar that they will be replaced by something far less environmentally sound. The farms are, in a way, nature’s last line of defense.

Another interesting case I’ve seen is where land that was barren after years of being used for pasture has been rehabilitated and planted with coffee. Although some of these have limited shade now, they will have lots in the future…and already represent a huge improvement over what was there before. These guys didn’t cut down any trees to plant coffee, but instead planted trees so that they could grow coffee, a measurable victory in the efforts to improve carbon sequestration and re-green the landscape. It’s a net positive gain for the environment.

Perhaps the biggest misconception when thinking about shade is the idea that clear-cutting or destroying forest to plant coffee is a pervasive problem in the Specialty Coffee industry today. There are places where it happens, but most of the publicity comes from large-scale farms in Colombia, Brasil, and Vietnam where coffee production has moved to a somewhat industrialized model. Still the majority of coffee in the world comes from small-holders, and the bulk of Specialty Coffee comes from mountainous areas in Latin America and Africa where producers are not doing that much differently today than they were generations ago and where industrialized coffee farming is a logistical near-impossibility. The biggest threat to forests in these places is lack of electricity or efficient fuel sources, creating a need to use trees for cooking and heat, and if our concern is to protect the trees, then the most significant contribution we could make is to help get the farmers some alternative fuel sources or more efficient stoves. In some ways, requiring the presence of certified shade trees on a small farm is sort of like the idea of demanding that parents use cloth instead of plastic diapers for their babies. We save some plastic from ending up in a landfill, but what do we lose in the form of electricity and polluting detergents used to keep the cloth clean? The trade off is very hard to measure. How many of us are willing to hand-wash diapers several times per day using only detergent-free biodegradable soaps?

If a farmer’s income is reduced because he is producing less coffee, spending more on labor to maintain the shade, and paying for certification costs, it may well be that he does not have the ability to purchase an efficient stove that conserves heat and removes smoke from the household. So now he is still burning too much wood, leading to lung damage from the air pollution and is cutting down trees from around the area so that he can cook dinner. Incidentally, most of the small farmers I’ve met are using cloth diapers. But some of them are washing them in the river using cheap commercial soaps. The world is more complex than we sometimes like to recognize. But in principle I believe in helping people help themselves—that is, finding ways to give them the resources they need to invest in their lives, and allowing them the privilege of deciding what their priorities are. Too many of the sustainability efforts that abound today have a decidedly paternalistic character, and many fail to offer opportunity of any significant advancement for the most disenfranchised farmers.

None of what I’ve said is an argument against shade in coffee…I am one of the biggest believers in the benefit of shade on coffee farms—for the earth, for the birds and animals depend on the habitat, and for the coffee quality itself. Shade is undeniably good, and our buying practices support continuing development of more shade on the farms we work with. All that I hoped to demonstrate is that "is there shade?" is not a yes or no question…and that marketing claims using shade as a lead subject should not always be taken at face value by the conscientious consumer. Rather, I would encourage the consumer to look for details, exercise the power of Google to get a comprehensive picture, and then choose to support products and companies which can demonstrate their commitments to sustainability in coffee (or any other product) by their actions. Too many of the programs marketed as "solutions" are really just patchwork attempts to fix historical mistakes and seek immediate gratification without trying to rebuild the system from the ground up in a way that can be enduring and self-sustaining. At their worst they involve a lot of moral posturing without providing a great deal of benefit to anyone except a handful of consumers who can feel better about themselves without having to work very hard or think too much to do it. Transparency is the key…delivery of facts and details with clarity (and documentation). Far too often in the coffee industry the phrase "shade grown" is more marketing than substance, and in those situations not only has the consumer been mislead, but his/her dollars or euros have perhaps been directed away from what might have been a more effective contribution towards the very things they set out to support in the first place!

Tragically, the worst offenders in the entire scheme are usually the governments of the producing countries themselves, who do not take forest reserve protection seriously. Equally blame-worthy are the multi-national NGOs who fund the governments to create protection schemes but do not adequately monitor the actual protection. Their brochures and websites offer their donors a nice feel good opportunity and the ability to brag about their environmental consciousness, but often accomplish little for the poor local populations and have at best a short-term impact on forest preservation. Meanwhile the staff collects large US-dollar salaries, governments get nice political propaganda material or perhaps some kickback, and both the impoverished rural citizens and the besieged environment benefit very little if at all. These programs often do next to nothing to improve the ability of the poor to build their livelihoods and permanently escape the confines of subsistence living.

Another very important fact that is rarely understood by coffee shade activists is that when agricultural land-use is taken as a whole, coffee emerges as perhaps the most sustainable and healthy option—even full-sun coffee. The most common alternatives are crops like sugar cane, rice, and corn—all of which are cut down and re-planted annually. These products are rarely subjected to the scrutiny they deserve, especially given their massive volumes of production and contributions to the world economy. We don’t tend to question their environmental impact, yet each of them is ecologically murderous to a degree that makes coffee saintly by comparison. Coffee is a perennial crop with very well developed root systems that protect against soil erosion and a leaf system that sequesters far more carbon than other crops. A full sun coffee farm is in fact more environmentally friendly than the farmer’s own vegetable garden, or the garden in your backyard, provided of course that the farmer is not misapplying chemical pesticides or herbicides. Full sun coffee was probably produced under more environmentally friendly conditions than your daily vegetarian meal. And, as mentioned, coffee can be a very appealing alternative to pastures that are patently unfriendly to the eco-system.

In North America and Europe we’ve already managed to cut down most of our forests for timber, residential developments and farmland. We are the worst offenders by far when it comes to the destruction of our planet, and continue our bad behavior every time we buy disposable products, package our food in cardboard and plastic, take long hot showers, and drive fuel-guzzling SUVs. The positive impact we could make by changing these habits far outweighs the impact that is made by planting trees in existing coffee farms. And surely we must be careful to avoid denying opportunity to small farmers to live well and send their kids to school just so that we can indulge our own (often mis- or under-informed) notions about saving the planet. Most small coffee farmers, whose environmental footprints are minimal compared to nearly every human being living in the developed world, do not have any sort of shade certification, despite the presence of shade on their farms. Supporting their ability to farm with dignity and realize a better standard of living is our most important sustainability goal.

Let’s shift gears and look at certification in general. Here is an interesting series of arguments for and against the shade-grown certification (courtesy of the NW Shade Coffee Campaign):

For:
.

Without certification growers can't earn a premium for shade-grown coffee.
Without certification consumers can't be confident that they are getting true shade-grown coffee.
Without certification there is no basis for holding companies accountable for their claims.
Major companies say they can't ask the market to trust them the way a small company might; they have to have certification to have credibility.
Companies may tell the public, "Most of our coffee is shade grown," lulling customers into thinking they are helping the environment. Even if much of the coffee is shade grown, it's not helping growers as much as certified shade-grown coffee.
Certification ensures reliable scientific standards are met, as opposed to subjective judgments by people who don't necessarily know all requirements for viable habitats.

Against:
.

It is difficult to hold certifiers accountable or to enforce truth in labeling in the face of political instability and endemic corruption.
Certification does not eliminate the possibility of fraud. Even if certifiers are on the up-and-up, there is nothing to prevent labeling sun coffee bags as "shade-grown."
Brokers who actually visit the farms and are known and trusted in the coffee industry are more reliable than certification.
Shade certification in and of itself doesn't insure a premium for farmers.
Requiring certification limits the availability of shade coffee to consumers because certification is expensive and time-consuming. Certification will make the retail price too high.
Some brokers do far more for the growers than certification demands. They provide market access and technical assistance and pay well above market prices.
It should be brokers, not growers, that are certified since brokers provide a trail.

The more we examine all of this, the more that it becomes clear that the answers are not simple ones, and sustainability really cannot be reduced to catch-phrases. Our Direct Trade program avoids entanglement with other certifications for several reasons:

We believe that ALL coffee is currently undervalued, and that for our industry to sustain we need to find ways to pay more to the growers. Certifications can indeed be costly and time-consuming, and we feel that the most important thing we can do right now is help farmers escape the commodity market and become economically stable by paying prices that allow them to invest in their futures. Having an additional certification would be an added cost that is of no real benefit to the farmers we work with and removes money from the chain for an outside source unrelated to the coffee production.

We already visit the farms... more often than the certifiers themselves! Most certifications require only one, perhaps two annual visits. We usually get there three times. Many roasters who pay for certification are unable to travel to all of the farms that produce the coffees they use, so paying someone else to go check up on things makes sense. For us, it is hard to justify.

Our experience with certifications has been disappointing. Enforcement of standards can vary in intensity depending on individual doing the inspecting, and there is enough 'slack in the line' that questions do arise. We prefer to place our trust in people we know very well—ourselves and the growers we work with.

All this said, we can certainly direct you towards the coffees we sell that have more shade. Each coffee context is different, but the common thread is sustainability. Every one of them must comply with the basic tenets of our Direct Trade program, and each must show measurable advancement over time towards the ideal. We believe that the key to sustainable trade is to focus on economic solutions for impoverished agricultural societies as priority one. Economic sustainability enables environmental protection—without the ability to earn a living and have access to water, electricity, school and health care, no group of people will invest in preserving their surroundings. This is why helping farmers achieve lasting financial stability is our number one goal, and the precursor to the realization of our environmental goals.

My hope is to provide our customers with enough detail about every coffee so that they have a virtual portal to the farm that allows them to make their own informed decisions about which they most want to support.

To that end, here is a quick "buyers guide" to our coffees with shade as the key consideration:

There are some coffees we sell that would meet even the strictest of the shade certifiers criteria…those are the ones I will call "Most Shady" and are coffees grown in Rustic settings that are completely integrated with natural forest. "Medium Shade" is one step below that—still a good habitat for many birds but not true forest although most of these farms protects primary forest with their land, and have set aside large portions that are to remain unused and untouched. "Minimal Shade" are those that are mostly full-sun coffees (for legitimate reasons).

Most Shady