Research on coffee growing

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.

Research on coffee growing

Blogging bird and coffee research

At the Partners in Flight 4th International Conference

Background
Wearing my occupational hat as an ornithologist, I just attended the Partners in Flight (PIF) conference in south Texas. PIF is a consortium of conservation agencies and organizations that partner to conserve birds — the emphasis is often on migratory landbirds. Because these birds do not recognize human boundaries, cross-border cooperation is a hallmark of PIF.

Coffee in the paper sessions
The first day, I attended a full-day symposia on conservation projects in Central America. Several described the identification of Important Bird Areas (IBAs) in countries such as Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Each speaker identified “sustainable agriculture” and “promotion of high-value cash crops” as a priority means of conserving these key bird conservation sites. Maps of the regions all showed IBAs which included areas whose primary land use was coffee production.

Another researcher looked at whether shade coffee might be a threat to forest birds. She examined whether chickens, always a familiar site wandering around in diverse farms in the tropics, could harbor disease that is passed on to forest birds. The chickens in her study did harbor various signs of diseases (though at a much lower level than “industrial” fowl), and some species of forest birds also showed evidence of exposure to them. However, there was no sign that there was increased mortality or an effect on population, since contact between chickens and forest birds was pretty limited.

The highlight of the meeting for me was an entire morning devoted to a dedicated shade coffee symposia, led by Robert Rice of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. I have written up the abstracts on the papers presented (download as a Word doc), and will incorporate this information in future posts.

Here I’d like to mention a theme that popped up in much of the research and dominated the discussion section: the importance of forest fragments in coffee farms and coffee-growing regions in general.

There was wide agreement that remnants of forest in or adjacent to coffee farms were vital to the preservation of biodiversity. These can be more important than the managed shade on the farm, especially if shade trees are sparse or of only one or a few species.  A researcher from Costa Rica talked about how many farms there planted small plots of sun coffee and used forested strips (planted or natural) as windbreaks. A Colombian researcher said that in some regions there was so much cloud cover that coffee could not be grown under any type of canopy, but the forested patches owned by the farmers harbored many forest birds. Neither of these farm types would qualify for shade certification, but the forest fragments were critical refugia for birds and other fauna.

The question that arose was how could farmers be rewarded for preserving these patches? And what if they did not own adjacent forest, such as protected areas owned by the government? So many tropical parks are “protected” only on paper, and local people do not see the benefit in a hands-off approach. Could there be away to provide incentive for stewardship of these forests as well, by incorporating that into shade certification criteria as well?

Other certification challenges were discussed as well, but I will leave some for future posts.

As I have written about before, Cerulean Warblers are a declining migratory species often associated with shade coffee, and they have been the subject of several papers. Both the American Bird Conservancy and their Colombian partner ProAves have booths in the exhibit hall. I have written about their efforts to preserve Cerulean Warbler habitat, including shade coffee farms, and their Cerulean Warbler Conservation Coffee. This coffee has been sold out for quite awhile, but they now have a new crop which has just been roasted by Thanksgiving Coffee Company, the roaster partner in this worthy endeavor.

And, yes — this conference only served sustainable coffee. Caffe Ibis is the exclusive provider, and all participants were told to bring their own mugs! Randy Wirth, co-owner and roaster of Caffe Ibis, gave a talk about his work in sustainable coffee, from visiting many of his sources (often multiple times), and his tireless work with both consumers and the coffee industry to promote and inform about sustainable coffee. We have many similar ideas about this issue, and I hope to have an opportunity to interview him for C&C some time in the future.

Look for other news and thoughts coming out of the PIF conference in future posts!

Birds and other biodiversity / Research on coffee growing

Research: Spiders on Indian coffee farms

Kapoor, V. (2008). Effects of rainforest fragmentation and shade-coffee plantations on spider communities in the Western Ghats, India. Journal of Insect Conservation, 12(1), 53-68.

Ants and butterflies are often the two most studied arthropods on coffee farms, so it was nice to see a paper looking at spiders. The study took place in Tamil Nadu and Kerala states in areas of mid-elevation tropical wet evergreen rainforest that had tea, coffee, and cardamom plantation surrounded by the Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary. The authors examined the community structure of spiders in two organic shade coffee farms and ten rainforest fragments of various sizes that were also under varying degrees of degradation.

Most of the study discussed the impact (or lack thereof) of fragment size on spider communities. Results regarding the shade coffee farms were limited. First, both of the coffee farms had similar spider density. The species composition in the two farms were more similar to each other than to other fragment types, but one farm did have higher species richness than the other. The author began by noting that the farm with higher richness had more native shade trees, versus the monoculture of non-native Eucalyptus in the other farm. That would be notable, except that the author went on to say that the first farm adjoined two forest fragments, while the other had poor connectivity. This is likely to have a strong effect on spiders with their relatively limited dispersal ability. Another factor mentioned by the author was that the coffee trees in the first (richer) farm were “much taller” than in the other farm. However, the sampling took place in the herbaceous and shrub layer up to 1.6 m, which is not very tall for a coffee tree, so it is unclear to me how this variable may have influenced the results.

One spider species was noted as being commonly found in undisturbed sites but absent from the coffee farms, while three types of spiders were more common in disturbed sites and the coffee farms. Unfortunately, “disturbance” was not specifically defined. Finally, the author admitted there is virtually no information on the natural history of spiders in the Western Ghats, and said this lack of data hindered using them as indicators of habitat disturbance.

Spiders do have many life-history features that should make them good habitat barometers. Despite some shortcomings, this study was a first step in examining spider communities in forested agrosystems. The results also at least suggested that shade coffee farms in this region are utilized more like “disturbed” than pristine sites by spiders, and that these spider communities may show responses similar to those documented for other organisms to forest connectivity and shade management of coffee farms.

Photo of Nephila pilipes, one of the spiders found in this study, by amateur_photo_bore; thanks for publishing under a Creative Commons license.

V. Kapoor. (2007). Effects of rainforest fragmentation and shade-coffee plantations on spider communities in the Western Ghats, India Journal of Insect Conservation, 12 (1), 53-68 DOI: 10.1007/s10841-006-9062-5

Birds and other biodiversity / Research on coffee growing

Research: Butterflies in Indian coffee farms

Adult butterfly communities in coffee plantations around a protected area in the Western Ghats, India. J. Dolia, M. S. Devy, N. A. Aravind, and A. Kumar. 2008. Animal Conservation 11:26-34.

Butterfly diversity was examined in 12 coffee plantations in India’s Western Ghats, a region of high biodiversity. Distance from a protected area, the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary, was the most influencial variable for the abundance and richness of butterfly fauna. The closer the coffee farms to the sanctuary, the higher the species richness and abundance. The composition of butterfly species on coffee farms also became less similar to that of native forest as distance from the sanctuary increased.

The proportion of Australian Grevillea robusta, often called silver oak, a fast-growing, sparse shade timber species now being planted in place of native species on Indian coffee farms, did not seem to effect butterfly abundance or diversity (more on silver oak on coffee farms here). However, the authors stated that three or four species of shade trees dominated at the coffee farms, and none seemed attractive to butterflies.  Coffee has traditionally been grown under native, rustic shade, but there has been an increasing use of fewer, often exotic, species and less shade in recent years.

There were some limitations to this study. It took place during the dry season, when there were not many trees and plants in flower in the sanctuary, but some (mostly non-native species) in the coffee farms. Nectar-feeding butterflies of larger species, which are strong fliers, may have therefore been disproportionally represented at farms farther from the sanctuary. The authors also noted a lack of information on host plants for butterfly larvae, but that many feed on understory shrubs and plants, which tend to be absent from coffee farms. Pesticide use also has a detrimental effect on butterflies. Although coffee farms may serve as corridors or provide roosting or basking sites, they may not have adequate resources for reproducing butterflies.

Photo of Blue Tiger (Tirumala limniace), a common south India species, by Challiyan.

J. Dolia, M. S. Devy, N. A. Aravind, A. Kumar. (2008). Adult butterfly communities in coffee plantations around a protected area in the Western Ghats, India Animal Conservation, 11 (1), 26-34 DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-1795.2007.00143.x