Certifications

Rainforest Alliance (RA) certified coffee conforms to standards and criteria established by the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN). SAN/RA recently released an impacts report. It summarizes the effects of RA certification on farms, farmers, and the environment worldwide for over 100 agricultural crops, and goes into more depth for several important crops, including coffee. I’ll focus, as usual, on issues surrounding biodiversity and habitat on coffee farms.

The report largely presents impacts evaluated through 1) compliance of a sampling of farms to all criteria at the first and most recent audits, and 2) results of studies comparing certified versus non-certified farms.  Here, I’ll look at the farm compliance for coffee farms.

Compliance reports: Revealing an inconsistency

One portion of the report looked at a sample of 68 Central American RA certified coffee farms  (of their 194,356 certified coffee farms worldwide, or 0.03%) and their level of compliance with criteria over time.

Regarding coffee certifications, Coffee & Conservation has been primarily concerned with criteria defining “shade” because those are the guidelines for canopy cover, vegetation structure, and tree species that promote biodiversity-friendly conditions.  In the RA standard, it is Criterion 2.8.

Thus, the most revealing and important fact in the report regarding compliance comes on page 40: “At the initial audit, about 70 percent of certified operations conformed to the requirements of Criterion 2.8 to maintain a diversified shade canopy with at least 12 species per hectare, 40 percent canopy coverage, and two vertical strata.”

Note that this refers to the current shade criterion, but the new standard that is to be published in July is likely to be weaker when it comes to tree and shade requirements.  You can read about the relaxing of these criteria over the years at this post, and the even more lax criteria that were proposed for the new standard here.

The Rainforest Alliance impacts report says 82% of coffee farms comply with current shade requirements. Yet they have said that most farms do not fully implement these requirements, and that’s why they proposed weakening this criterion. The level of conformance increased to 82% by the last (most recent) audit performed. The report goes on to state, ”These results indicate the role of SAN/Rainforest Alliance certification in promoting shade-grown coffee and diversified agroecosystems, which can provide substantial value for biodiversity.”

Seventy to 82% compliance is certainly substantial. Yet in response to my post regarding the weakening of Criterion 2.8 for coffee farms, a Rainforest Alliance representative stated: ”The current criterion 2.8 has not been implemented fully by farms and hence has not been effective in terms of delivering the objective of providing an agroforestry framework that balances both ecosystem services of trees with profitable production scenarios.” A similar statement was made in a document supporting the proposed change, which noted this criterion had proved “impracticable for many producers.”

RA/SAN seem to be contradicting themselves. While the impacts report doesn’t say that the farms examined are representative of all farms, or even Central American farms, RA chose to feature them, implying that they are representative, that the shade requirements are being implemented by a sizable majority of producers, and clearly stating that this indicates the value of RA certification to biodiversity.

Yet to justify lowering the shade requirements in the next version of the standard, RA says that farms are not fully implementing the criterion and it has not been effective. Perhaps the real clue is that RA claims the level of shade now required doesn’t result in “profitable production scenarios.”

However, RA boasts that certification for coffee farms increases income, yield, opens new markets, and provides other economic benefits. In the impacts report, three studies are cited that found revenue was higher on RA certified coffee farms versus non-certified farms.

Is the high compliance presented in the impacts report truly representative? If not, why use it to support a statement that says certification is valuable to biodiversity? If so, why lower the requirements? Are farms that implement the shade requirements really less profitable? If  so, is that due to shade requirements? If not, why lower the criteria?

I think that the high level of compliance with the shade and other biodiversity and environmental criteria as well as the positive economic impacts outlined in the report (which, despite my criticisms, I believe are both considerable and meaningful) demonstrate that RA certification is both achievable, profitable, and beneficial to the environment … at least for the currently certified farms.  The studies reviewed in the impacts report suggest some of the real motivation behind the proposed weakening of some criteria. This will be examined in Part 2.

[Updates: Since this post, the standard revision, and the merger with UTZ, many of the links in this post have been eliminated; I’ve replaced them with archived links that will hopefully provide historical context. The newest 2020 standard is discussed here.]

Periodically, coffee certification standards and criteria undergo a review process, with modifications made if necessary. The standard used to certify Rainforest Alliance coffee (and other RA-certified products) are developed by the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN).

The current SAN standard has been undergoing a fairly long review and revision process. Last year in my post The (de)evolution of Rainforest Alliance shade criteria, I outlined the incremental relaxation of the criteria for shade over agroforestry crops — what the public understands to signify “shade-grown coffee.”

In April of last year, I further described the new proposed standard, which no longer requires a shade canopy over coffee or other shade-tolerant crops for initial certification, and after 3 years only requires “trees and natural areas” covering 20% of total land area. This, in addition to the lowering of other criteria related to tree density and composition, seriously undermines the relevance of the Rainforest Alliance seal for consumers looking for ”shade coffee” that is eco-friendly to birds and other diversity. Please read the previous post and comments for details.

At that time, the public was urged to comment; I did so, as well as consulting with one of the three major bird conservation organizations that also submitted comments. The compilation of the comments shows I was not alone in my dismay at the weakening of the shade standard. Our voices were heard, because this PDF document by SAN summarizing the comments and next steps includes the following section:

This is encouraging — SAN gave the shade tree criterion a second look. The draft the public commented on was version 3.5, and the draft approved last month was reportedly be 4.3. None of the interim drafts were made public (that I know of) and while SAN only stated that the “next standard draft version” would have the shade criterion, we have to assume it will survive through to the the final draft. I’ll be cautiously optimistic that it will also be closer to the current standard, but given the recent trend I don’t want to set my hopes too high. We’ll have to wait and see.

As a result of the comments and additional revisions, the timeline of the whole process was pushed out. The new SAN Sustainable Agriculture Standard will be published in September 2016, and it will be binding for audits on all farms and groups starting July 2017.

[Updates: Since this post, the standard revision, and the merger with UTZ, many of the links in this post have been eliminated; I’ve replaced them with archived links that will hopefully provide historical context. The newest 2020 standard is discussed here.]

The Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) is revising the standards used for Rainforest Alliance certification; this review process takes place every few years. Over the last decade, revisions have introduced a gradual relaxation of the criteria that deal with shade cover for agroforestry crops, including coffee. The amount, composition, and structure of shade cover is the main proxy for habitat preservation and the conservation of biodiversity, especially birds, in coffee production areas.

The current third and final draft of the standard is very different from previous versions; it is available for download on this page (or click here for a PDF). Once finalized, the new standard will be published in October 2015, and be used in audits beginning in January 2017.

This latest version contains no mandatory criteria for shade cover for shade-tolerant crops such as coffee.

The criterion that deals loosely with shade can be met by things other than shade trees, including gardens, off-site areas, water bodies, and tree cover in pastures. It is not a critical criterion that must be met for initial certification. The overall structure of the criterion means that “shade monoculture” or even “sun coffee” can receive Rainforest Alliance certification.

A history of previous versions of the shade criteria in the SAN standard can be read here. Briefly, the current standard (and therefore Rainforest Alliance certification) requires a canopy density (shade) on the cultivated land of at least 40% and two “layers” of vegetation; 12 of the tree species per hectare have to be native. (Older versions also required a density of at least 70 shade trees per hectare; this was dropped in 2009.)

Here is the current proposed criterion that deals with “shade” or forest cover, with explanations and clarifications given as footnotes.

Trees and natural ecosystems together cover at least 20% of the total land area¹ for farms producing shade-tolerant crops or cattle, or at least 10% of the total land area for farms producing non-shade-tolerant crops.

a) Such areas consist of any combination of:

1) Conserved natural ecosystems;
2) Areas being restored to natural ecosystems;
3) Tree cover within agroforestry or silvopastoral production plots²;
4) Gardens, live fences, riparian zones or border plantings; or
5) Off-site compensation areas, including land held in common by farmer groups that is not part of individual member farms³.

b) The overall required percentage is based on the proportion of shade-tolerant or non-shade-tolerant crop or cattle area covered by the SAN certificate scope⁴;

c) If the required level of tree cover and/or natural ecosystems is not met at the time of the first certification audit based on this standard, a plan to attain the required level within three years of this date is established and progressively implemented⁵;

d) Restoration and re-vegetation activities use native species and give preference to restoring riparian areas and wildlife movement corridors.

The requirements for “shade” are not as strict or specific as they once were, and there is a great deal of leeway in meeting the reduced requirements. The combination of allowable types of green spaces can result in the required percentage to consist of small and fragmented plots that are not necessarily “natural.” These do not provide the same quality of habitat as a shade agroforestry system which requires canopy cover of adequate density, composition, and distribution.

A supporting document (PDF) states that the specific tree cover parameters of previous versions of the standard were replaced because they had proven ”impracticable for many producers.” Rainforest Alliance certified its first coffee farm in 1995, and now certifies over 5% of global coffee production, in addition to dozens of other crops and products. This scaling up of certification efforts is admirable, but is coming at the cost of maintaining rigorous environmental standards. Instead of (perhaps) fewer producers achieving high standards, it appears the bar is being lowered to make it easier for more producers to become certified.

This is not an indictment of Rainforest Alliance certification as a whole or to say it does not confer benefits.  It  serves as a heads-up that what is behind certifications changes over time, and that Rainforest Alliance certification (despite the impression the name implies) does not mean coffee is shade-grown.

The comment period is open until April 30. Please comment on the new draft standards by taking this survey.

_______

¹As noted, previous standards had requirements specifically for the coffee growing production area, not the entire farm unit. Now, what qualifies as “shade” does not have to be over or near the coffee itself. See also note 4 below; the total percentage required may actually be less than 20%.

²Silvopasture = trees in livestock production pastures; these can be counted toward the total percentage.

³In response to a specific query, SAN clarified whether or not the same single “off-site compensation area” could be used by more than one producer. They responded “producer groups could have just one forest reserve, for example, that would count for the required percentage of several producers.”

⁴This provision seems in conflict with the straightforward wording of the criterion itself, that (for coffee) 20% of the total land area must be covered by trees or natural ecosystems. In response to a specific query, SAN replied that this provision “is the concept that will be adapted for the respective criterion wording.” This indicates that depending on how much of the farm is covered by coffee, the requirement may actually be less than 20% of the total land area.

⁵Requirement does not have to be met for initial 3-year certification period, only a plan is required. It is unclear if the requirement will need to be met in full beginning with the renewal audit.