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For the term "Bukit Barisan".

Coffee regions / Corporate coffee / Nestlé/Nespresso

Deforestation from commodity coffee drags on

The New York Times Magazine published a well-written account about the ongoing illegal coffee growing in Sumatra’s Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. The article focuses on the Wildlife Conservation Society’s investigations into continued forest clearing in the park by small farmers who sell their coffee at rock-bottom prices to middlemen, who then sell to large coffee companies. The article notes this probe began around 2015. However, the World Wildlife Fund put out a detailed report on this issue in 2007, and a paper in a well-respected peer-reviewed journal in 2009 outlined that this problem had already existed for 30 years. Below I list all the posts in which I summarized or wrote about the illegal coffee growing (and purchasing) in this region.

The Times piece nicely laid out the complexities of the situation and the plight of the exploited farmers. The Wildlife Conservation Society concluded the certifications and traceability were not working because the supply chain was so complicated that the auditing was “too expensive for exporters specializing in cheap, bad coffee.” Nor was expelling or punishing farmers the solution, so WCS launched a program to help farmers improve their yields and livelihoods, even at the borders or within the park with the goal of reducing additional deforestation and eventually reforesting plots.

I’m not going to delve into the pros and cons of this approach, other than to say that I don’t think conservation organizations need to be in the business of agricultural extension services when the giant corporations raking in billions of dollars of profits at the expense of farmers and the environment could and should easily be funding and executing these efforts in totality*. Once again, the responsibility for ensuring environmental ethics and sustainability is fobbed off on a third party. There is no mention in the article on the importance of the “demand” side of the equation, although the author provides this brilliant and not-so-subtle hint:

The reality is that such beans are sold into the anonymity of a commodity market designed to make uniform products for placeless destinations. The point of this coffee was to forget that it had ever come from anywhere at all.

A company can decide to sacrifice profit for ethical responsibility, but only to the degree that shareholders allow them to. And it is the people who buy the products that influence the bottom line which pushes the shareholders to make a company change policies. The article, while illuminating, leaves the average reader feeling rather helpless, or at least with the impression that some organization out there is working to solve the problem.

The average reader is you, and there is something you can do to move the needle in this complex situation. It’s simple and elegant: Remember that your coffee does come from somewhere, and make the choice not to buy and support cheap, anonymized, corporate coffee.

My posts — tons of background:

*And indeed some of them are partnering with WCS to tackle this problem, such as Olam International and JDE. If you believe that corporate giants are sincere or effective in their efforts, consider Nestlé’s “zero deforestation” claim. Despite the fact that Nestlé purchases more coffee than three of the five raw products included in the plan (soy, meat, or palm oil), it was not a commodity Nestlé chose to include in this plan.

Research on coffee growing

Coffee-related deforestation in Sumatra

Three decades of deforestation in southwest Sumatra: effects of coffee prices, law enforcement and rural poverty. 2009. D. L. A. Gaveau, M. Linkie, Suyadi, P. Levang, and N. Leader-Williams. Biological Conservation 142:597-605 .

I’ve written in the past about Sumatra’s problems with illegal coffee growing, particularly in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. A 2007 World Wildlife Fund investigation revealed that the robusta coffee grown illegally in the park was threatening the integrity of tiger, elephant, and rhino habitat and was purchased by such large companies as Kraft and Nestlé. A year later, I posted an update that noted Nestlé was still buying coffee originating in the park.

This study revisited this on-going situation, examining how deforestation can be curbed by law enforcement efforts, and how deforestation rates are driven by coffee prices.

Over the last 34 years, the main driver of deforestation in and around the park has been production of low-grade robusta coffee, the kind used in cheap grocery store blends and instant brands. In 2005, more than 85% of the forested areas in the park that had been converted to agriculture was planted with coffee, and the yield was a remarkable 4% of Indonesia’s entire annual robusta production.

The was a complex interplay of changing laws, local coffee prices tied to currency valuation, and low wages in the coffee-growing regions that drove the coffee-related deforestation, nicely analyzed by the authors. Active law enforcement did curtail the encroachment in the park in the 1980s. It has rebounded since the late 1990s; the departure of President Suharto has seen a decline in the emphasis on law enforcement, and a change in the governing philosophy towards conservation and rural workers, explain the authors.

The authors did not give a lot of cause for optimism that the coffee-related deforestation can be easily addressed. For example, eco-certification has been suggested to help provide premiums to farmers that grow coffee outside of the park under sustainable guidelines. But according to the authors, buyers and roasters are unwilling to manage the costs of certification. I doubt that the premiums wouldn’t be sufficient to discourage farming inside park boundaries (consumers would be unwilling to absorb additional costs for low-quality robusta).

Ultimately the authors suggested that prohibiting local use of the park would have to be reconsidered, including, perhaps, some type of sustainable-use policy and community conservation projects.

Photo of a Sumatran Tiger by g-na under a Creative Commons license.

Research on coffee growing

Research: Sumatran coffee weak on preserving forest biodiversity

Philpott, S. M., P. Bichier, R. A. Rice, and R. Greenberg. 2008. Biodiversity conservation, yield, and alternate products in coffee agrosystems in Sumatra, Indonesia. Biodiversity Conservation 17:1805-1820.

The vast majority of field research on biodiversity conservation in coffee agrosystems has taken place in Latin America. For that reason, there has been some criticism that using “shade coffee” for conservation may not apply to coffee growing regions in other parts of the world. So this paper, by well-known coffee researchers currently or formerly associated with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Research Center, is a welcome addition to the literature.

This study took place in and around Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in Lampung province, southwestern Sumatra. Last year, the World Wildlife Fund reported that 30% of the park has been lost to illegal agriculture, mainly coffee which was documented as having been purchased by Kraft and other large roasters (this post summarizes the report’s findings; more on the status of these farms later in this post).

This study looked at differences in vegetation, ants, birds, and crop characteristics between forest in the park, and coffee plots both within and outside the park. These farms all cultivate robusta, not arabica, coffee. Robusta is typically grown in full sun, but it has been shown to benefit (via higher yields) from some shade, especially in poor soil conditions.

Not surprisingly, and consistent with other studies, coffee plots, whether inside or outside the park, had fewer species of trees, ants, and birds than the forest. The forest had far more canopy cover, denser canopy thickness, taller trees, and more epiphytes than any of the coffee plots.

The Oriental White-Eye (Zosterops palpeborsus) was one of the most commonly encountered species in forest, but it was not found in coffee plots either within or outside the park.

Various metrics between coffee plots within or outside the park were actually quite similar, including amount of canopy cover (around 32%), and number of species of trees, ants, and birds. However, although the number of species was similar, there was very little similarity in the species composition of all taxa between coffee plots and forests. This is in contrast with studies looking at the same variables in Chiapas, Mexico, which found much higher similarity between forests and coffee plots. It indicates that these robusta coffee farms in Sumatra do not maintain most forest species.

There are some contributing factors that make coffee farms in this area poor reserves for biodiversity. Sumatran coffee farms use very few species of shade trees, including the non-native Gliricidia sepium, which may not provide proper resources for native fauna. In general, the farms had very poor soil conservation practices, no use of organic fertilizers or compost, and minimal ground cover. Farmers will need help in sustainable agriculture management to help alleviate these problems.

This will be challenging enough for the legal farms outside the park. As for the ones inside, some of the 15,000 families which have illegal plots in the park have been there for up to 20 years, and there is little place in the surrounding landscape for them to farm if they are removed — even if they are provided incentives for farming outside the protected area. Sadly, other studies have indicated that even if they are removed, forest recovery is slow in this area and expensive restoration efforts would likely be required in order to rehabilitate agricultural encroachments.

It sounds like the bulk of this coffee is sold to the large multinational roasters for grocery store blends, who could well afford to assist in developing sustainable agricultural in the area that supports biodiversity and farm family income. These results also suggest to me that consumers should be looking to buy sustainably-grown arabica coffee from Sumatra, purchased via roasters who have relationships with their farmers.

Photo by Lip Kee under a Creative Commons license.

Coffee and the environment / Corporate coffee

Habitat still destroyed for cheap corporate coffee

Nearly a year ago, I wrote a post discussing a World Wildlife Fund report revealing that robusta coffee was being illegally grown in southern Sumatra, with most being purchased by large coffee producers such as Kraft and Nestlè (press release here, full PDF here). That report focused on coffee being grown inside Indonesia’s Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in Lampung province.

Earlier this week, ABC News carried a report on the plight of wild elephants in Sumatra. The story updated the situation at Bukit Barisan, and reported that only 4 elephants out of 60 still survive there. ABC said:

The national park is a protected forest, but a lot of it has been burned and cleared to grow Robusta coffee beans. These beans are commonly used in Europe and North America to make instant coffee.

Nestlè, which makes Nescafe, buys coffee from the region — 40 percent of it from local traders.

A Nestlè spokesman told ABC News, “It might come — we have no way of  knowing — from illegal sources. Law enforcement is not our task.”

In a follow-up post, I provided and update, in which Nestlè admitted the “difficulty of determining the precise origin” of its coffee. The company promised a year ago to increase the scrutiny of its Indonesian sources to make sure it didn’t buy illegally grown beans and launch an effort to clean up its supply chain.

If Nestlè hasn’t bothered to clean up its act, there’s a good reason: consumers are not penalizing them for their poor behavior. For the first nine months of 2007, since the first reports about the illegal coffee came to light, the Nestlè division that includes Nescafe and other coffees grew 10%, with sales — just in this division — of over US$11 billion.  It’s not just Nestlè, Kraft’s North American beverage division also posted a 5.3% gain in net revenues in the third quarter of 2007.

As long as people buy these coffees, they will continue to be produced, no matter how much habitat and wildlife gets destroyed, or how many growers become impoverished. The large multinational corporations that bring us our dirt cheap coffee are motivated by profits. Do you buy this coffee? What motivates you?

Photo of robusta coffee growing in the sun in southern Sumatra, from Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

Corporate coffee / Nestlé/Nespresso / Retail and specialty roasters / Starbucks

Nestlé and Starbucks respond to illegal coffee report

In an article in an Indonesian newspaper, Nestlé and Starbucks both responded to the report that they had been purchasing robusta coffee beans illegally grown in a Sumatran national park in Lampung province.

Nestlé
A spokesman for Nestlé Indonesia made this statement:

“Nestlé never willingly purchases coffee from dubious sources. However, the company admits the difficulty of determining the precise origin of a coffee bag which has passed through different hands before it reaches the Nestlé buyer.”

The emphasis is mine, which precisely sums up why I continuously recommend not buying supermarket coffees.  If the companies themselves don’t know where their coffee comes from or how it is farmed, how can we know it is farmed sustainably?  Or believe them?

Nestlé also said that the coffee they purchase from Lampung (around 12,000 tons a year) goes to make instant coffee. So brands to avoid = Nescafé and Taster’s Choice.

 


Starbucks
A spokesperson for Starbucks’ Indonesian partner denied that the company purchased coffee from Lampung (the southern province in question), or any robusta beans from Sumatra at all.

Starbucks is listed in the report on page 50, in an appendix on recipients of tainted coffee.  The list was compiled from records of the Cooperative Industry and Trade Service of Lampung province. It’s possible these records could be forged or falsified, I suppose. There is nothing as yet on the Starbucks web site concerning this issue.

By the way, buyers of Lampung beans should know better.  It was in 2003 that published reports [1,2] revealed that 70% of Lampung’s beans came from inside or adjacent to Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park and that endangered animals were threatened from the illegal cultivation.

[1] O’Brien, T. G. and M. F. Kinnaird.  2003.  Caffeine and conservation.  Science 300:587.

[2] Kinnaird, M.F., E.W. Sanderson, T. G. O’Brien, H.T. Wibisono, and G. Woolmer. 2003. Deforestation trends in a tropical landscape and implications for endangered large mammals. Conservation Biology 17:245-257.

Hat tip to bccy.

Coffee and the environment / Coffee regions / Corporate coffee / Jacobs Douwe Egberts/KraftHeinz

Illegal coffee growing threatens wildlife, Kraft major buyer

In a well-investigated and detailed report (pdf) released yesterday, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) revealed that robusta coffee is being illegally grown in southern Sumatra, with most being purchased by large coffee producers such as Kraft and Nestlé.

“Illegally grown coffee is mixed with legally grown coffee beans and sold to such companies as Kraft Foods and Nestlé among other major companies in the U.S. and abroad.” — WWF

The coffee is being grown inside Indonesia’s Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, which has over 300 bird species and is one of the few places where the endangered Sumatran subspecies of tigers, elephants, and rhinos coexist. This park has already lost 30% of its land to illegal agriculture, mainly coffee. WWF found 173 square miles being used for illegal coffee growing, with a yield of nearly 20,000 tons of coffee annually.  Wildlife has abandoned these cultivated areas.  WWF tracked the illegal coffee from the park through export routes to multinational coffee companies using satellite imaging, interviews with coffee farmers and traders, and trade route monitoring.

The U.S. received 17% of the coffee tainted with illegally grown beans.  Illegal beans are sold to local traders, who mix them with legally grown beans which then make their way to exporters. Major international companies purchase beans from exporters, and if they are not conscientious about their supply chain, they may not know they are buying illegal beans. The main buyers are shown in this graph from the report (click to enlarge), with Kraft being the number one buyer.

Exports of robusta beans from Lampung province, where most the park lies, have been steadily increasing, and the top six companies on the graph buy 55% of all Lampung beans. The profits spurring the encroachment into the park are financed by the purchases of these global roasters, and all Lampung beans have a very high probability of being contaminated with illegally grown beans, according to WWF. Talcoa (part of Kraft Foods), Kraft, and Nestlé were the top recipients in 2003-2005; Folgers (Procter & Gamble) and Starbucks received smaller amounts in 2004.

After being contacted by WWF, Kraft and Nestle were among five companies in the early stages of “engaging with WWF” on the problem. Four companies, including ED&F Man, parent company of VOLCAFE (which supplies beans to Nestlé and Maxwell House), denied involvement. Eight other companies did not reply (full list in report).

Remember this is robusta coffee, so you don’t have to worry about the Sumatran arabica beans from your favorite specialty roaster. The illegal beans are those used in most supermarket blends.  Another reason to not buy these coffees!

See update #1 here and a late 2007 update here.

Hat tip to Ned Potter’s ABC News Science and Technology blog.  Map adapted from GoVacation Indonesia.

Coffee news and miscellany

Sips: Brain dump from the hiatus

Yes, I’m still around. The last few months I have been not only busy with my real job, but also with buying a house, moving, and selling the old homestead. I’ve still been thinking about (and drinking) coffee; the print on the right is one of the first items I hung in the kitchen in the new abode.

Here is some of the coffee news I have been bookmarking and might have written about, had I had the time.

C&C will be getting back on track with research news, reviews, and the like shortly.