Certifications

Certifications / Organic coffee

Farmers are abandoning organic coffee — and it’s your fault

A recent article in the Christian Science Monitor reports that at least 10% of organic coffee farmers in northern Latin America alone have given up and are returning to producing coffee with chemicals.

Why? Despite increasing demand for organic coffee, the prices buyers are willing to pay are not enough to cover the added cost of organic production.

Buyers aren’t willing to pay adequate prices because consumers apparently are not willing to, either. The U.S. is largest importer of organic coffee in the world. The buck, as they say, stops here.

A typical conventional coffee farm, the piece notes, uses up to 250 pounds of chemical fertilizers (usually petroleum-based) on every acre. I presume this does not include the substantial amount of herbicides and pesticides that are also used in conventional coffee growing.

Still, if farmers are not obtaining an adequate price premium for their organic coffee, the chemicals are still cheaper than the cost of composts (more volume needed than synthetic fertilizers), certification and audit fees, and significant additional labor costs, especially combined with typically-lower yields.

An FAO report cited three other studies that confirmed that the price premium for organic coffee is highly correlated with quality [1]. Thus, producers of organic, high-quality specialty coffee are more likely to cover their costs and make a profit, and continue to grow coffee organically. Producers of low-quality organic coffee sell their coffee at a low or no premium (often to purveyors of cheap organic coffee, e.g., Millstone, Yuban), realize no benefit to the added work and costs of organic production, and either bail out and go back to chemicals or rip out their coffee entirely and go with another crop.

What can you do?

  • Pay more for organic (and shade-grown) coffees. Don’t expect the poor farmers in the developing world to subsidize a healthier world for you. It’s ridiculous.
  • Don’t be completely wedded to certified coffee. The costs and complications involved in certification are formidable if not insurmountable for perhaps the majority of small farmers [2], even though many grow coffee with few or no chemicals. Take the time to research your coffee — virtually all of the roasters I recommend in the footer provide details on where their coffees come from and how they are grown. Be willing to pay for these sustainably-grown beans, as well.

When you take into account the fact that the soil and coffee trees on chemical-dependent farms become depleted many years sooner than on organic farms, or the costs involved in environmental and human health due to exposure to chemicals, primarily pesticides [3], “cheap” coffee is no longer cheap for anybody.

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2009. The market for organic and Fair Trade coffee. Study prepared in the framework of FAO project GCP/RAP/404/GER. Available online (PDF).

[2] From the ground up: organic coffee certification, production, and processing. Coffee Talk Magazine, November 2009 (PDF).

[3] See the section on The Environmental Dimensions of Coffee Production in the report, Coffee, Conservation, and Commerce in the Western Hemisphere, by the National Resources Defense Council.

See also:

How much is organic certification worth? Harvest Public Media.

Gaia Estate, a Bird-Friendly coffee grower’s perspective. Birds & Beans Canada blog.

Valkila, J. 2009. Fair Trade organic coffee production in Nicaragua — Sustainable development or a poverty trap? Ecological Economics 68:3018-3025.

Calo, M. and T. A. Wise. 2005. Revaluing Peasant Coffee Production: Organic and Fair Trade Markets in Mexico.Global Development and Environment Institute. Tufts Univ., Medford, MA. PDF.

Photo by Urvish Joshi under a Creative Commons license.

Coffee and the environment / Organic coffee

EPA bans pesticide carbofuran on coffee imports

In May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its decision to ban any residue of the pesticide carbofuran on food. The rule becomes effective December 31, 2009.

Carbofuran (sold under the name Furadan) causes neurological damage in humans, is extremely deadly to birds and fish, and is highly toxic through ingestion and inhalation. It is used on numerous crops, including coffee. It tends to be used on various types of mealy bugs that infest the roots of coffee plants, coffee root nematodes, and on the coffee leaf miner (Leucoptera coffeella). Coffee leaf miners have natural enemies in Latin America, so carbofuran is used against them mainly in Africa.

Earlier in the process of reviewing carbofuran uses, the EPA rules allowed the importation of rice, coffee, bananas, and sugarcane with carbofuran residues. This final decision reverses that, and countries exporting coffee into the U.S. must stop using carbofuran on their crops. While little pesticide residue remains on green or roasted coffee, the direct threats to coffee workers, wildlife, and the millions of migratory and resident birds from the application of carbofuran to coffee make its use dangerous.

The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for enforcing EPA regulations on food imports. Carbofuran residue on food has been banned in the EU for some time, so testing protocols are established. Exporting countries, and coffee exporters and importers, often engage testing and certification labs to insure there are no violations that could lead to rejected shipments or, worse, a ban on imports.

FMC Corporation, the Pennsylvania-based company that manufactures Furadan, recently announced that they are challenging the EPA’s decision on some technical and administrative grounds. They have contended that the chemical is safe, despite well-documented impacts on birds, lions, hippos, other wildlife, and humans. Reports are still surfacing about illegal use of Furadan by poachers to kill vultures (which attract attention to illegal kills) and small birds which are then sold for human consumption.

Improper pesticide usage (whether unwitting or purposeful), export of domestically banned pesticides to other countries, and the fact that we are just beginning to understand the dangers of cumulative and synergistic effects of multiple pesticides in the environment to wildlife and humans, all argue for support of non-chemical-based pest management. And that includes growing coffee under diverse shade with its biodiversity-based pest control benefits.

Update: In 2010, courts ruled the EPA had to once again establish residue tolerances for imported foods, including coffee.

Certifications

Update on eco-friendly coffee market share

UPDATE: A thorough report with detailed breakdowns of producing and consuming countries, certified roasters and importers, major retailers, and other information is now available on the SMBC web site.

The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center announced that sales of Bird-Friendly coffee in 2008 were $3.5 million, with 61% being sold in the U.S.[1]

For the 2007-2008 crop year, 6 million pounds (2700 metric tons) of Bird-Friendly certified coffee was produced. This certification is at the farm level, with 1400 farms and 5000 ha (12,000 acres) under certification [2].

Nearly all Bird-Friendly certified farms are in Latin America, since the research that led to the launching of the certification took place there and was developed for Neotropical habitats. Peru, Guatemala, and Mexico account for 77% of Bird-Friendly coffee, with Peru producing 39% of the total.

More recently, Bird-Friendly standards have been adopted for Africa, and now about 5% of Bird-Friendly certified coffee comes from Ethiopia. Efforts are continuing to expand criteria and certification to other areas, including other African countries, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia (certified coffee from Sumatra should be available within the next year, according to the report).

You can find a current list of certified farms on the SMBC site.

Growth in other certification schemes
All Bird-Friendly coffee is certified organic, and organic coffee market share has also been growing. North American sales of organic coffee reached $1.3 billion in 2008, up from $1 billion in 2007.  This represents 89 million pounds (40,000 metric tons) versus 84 million (38,000 MT) in 2007.

Rainforest Alliance reports that their certified coffee sales in 2008 totaled 62,296 metric tons (137 million pounds), up from around 40,000 metric tons 89 million pounds) in late 2007. I’ve not found corresponding figures for the number of Rainforest Alliance certified farms/acreage, but when I last reported these figures they were 200,000 ha of coffee on nearly 17,000 farms as of late 2007.

Despite the growth in eco-friendly coffee certifications and sales, this is still a very niche market. Total world production in 2008 was 7.6 million metric tons, making these certified coffees only about 1% of the total produced. U.S. imports of coffee in the first quarter of 2008 were 387,000 metric tons, which means organic coffee imports were under 10% of the U.S. market.

[1] This figure represents coffee actually sold as certified but not all coffee produced under any given certification gets sold as such. Some may be blended with non-certified coffee, the buyer may be interested in other attributes besides the certification and purchases it without intending to market it as certified, or other reasons. In 2006, only about 6% of coffee produced on Bird-Friendly certified farms was sold as such. This situation also occurs with organic, Fair Trade, and other certifications.

[2] When I calculated these figures from the SMBC web site in May 2008, I came up with 28 producers growing on 7200 ha, with production of approximately 3100 metric tons.

Certifications / Coffee news and miscellany

Shade-grown coffees at Coffee Review

For August 2009, Ken Davids’ Coffee Review takes a look at shade grown coffee. First he describes the definition of the term “shade grown” and goes on to provide reviews of 12 coffees that scored 89 or over. Three were Smithsonian Bird-Friendly certified coffees, others were not certified, but grown under various levels of shade.

There were four coffees earning the highest mark of 92 points:

  • Counter Culture’s Finca Nueva Armenia (Guatemala). Certified organic and Bird-Friendly, this is one of my all-time favorite coffees. I reviewed last year’s crop, and this year it tastes even better. Ken describes a “slight hint of fruit ferment” that I find gives this year’s crop an extremely interesting, deep-toned, subtle wine-like complexity — it’s fantastic! I can be accused of giving a lot of love to Counter Culture, but I can assure you I recommend them and their coffees simply because they just do a bang-up job. Go buy this coffee!
  • Arbor Day Specialty Coffee Mexico ISMAM Co-op. Certified organic and Fair Trade. Coffee is traditionally grown under mixed shade in this region, and one or more of the many farms in this co-op (but not all) is or has been Bird-Friendly certified. I reviewed the Arbor Day Blend, which is sourced either from this co-op, or Nubes de Oro (which scored 91 points in this issue of Coffee Review). I wasn’t as enthused about either of these coffees as Ken, but suspect it was due to the crop I sampled being a little long in the tooth. I don’t see any way on their web site to order either of these Mexican coffees as a single origin, but you can go to the Arbor Day coffee web site and browse around.
  • Ecco Cafe Brazil Santa Terezinha. Organic. Santa Terezinha is indeed one of the only Brazilian farms that makes much use of shade; you can read more about the farming techniques at the blog of the importer, Sustainable Harvest. All the coffees I’ve had from Ecco Cafe have been excellent. I’ll be grabbing a bag of the Santa Terezinha with my next coffee order.
  • Flying Goat, Siberia, El Salvador. Certified organic, typically grown under shade in this region.  A classic, sweet Central from one of my favorite origin coffees.

There are other very nice sustainably-grown coffees in the list, many of which I’ve had and enjoyed. Go take a look at the reviews, the article, and while you’re there, the rest of Ken’s informative and authoritative site.