Research on coffee growing

Research on coffee growing

Research: Kopi luwak (civet poop) coffee threatens welfare of animals

Observations of small carnivores in Jakarta wildlife markets, Indonesia, with notes on trade in Javan Ferret Badger Melogale orientalis and on the increasing demand for Common Palm Civet Paradoxurus hermaphroditus for civet coffee production. Shepherd, 2012. Small Carnivore Conservation.

Kopi luwak — coffee beans pooped out by small mammals called civets — is the hideous fad that just won’t go away.  In a previous post and review, all the ins and outs of this awful practice and its results are covered.  Theoretically at least, the pooped-out coffee beans used to be collected from the forest floor after the civets ate them while foraging in the wild. The popularity of this type of coffee, however undeserved, has resulted in most luwak coffee coming from animals kept in small cages in unsanitary conditions, fed only coffee cherries. This is not a nutritionally sound diet — note that they are carnivores; meat, not fruit, should be the primary element of their diets. Late last year, The Guardian did a piece on the abuse of animals kept to feed the kopi luwak craze.

This paper, published in Small Carnivore Conservation, the journal of the Small Carnivore Specialist Group of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), highlights the plight of these animals in Asian wildlife markets. Common Palm Civets, the species most often used to produce kopi luwak, were the most common small carnivores being offered for sale in markets in Jakarta, Indonesia. Two other civet species were also found.

According to the paper, Common Palm Civets have a quota for capture and trade in Indonesia — only 270 are allowed per year to be sold as pets. However, because this species is also often considered a pest, these quotas are not enforced. Civets are also sold in markets in other Asian countries as “pets”, but the author noted that in Bali, at least one dealer noted the production of kopi luwak as a selling point. In a great piece covering this same paper at the online conservation site Mongabay, the author notes that civets and their relatives are already under pressure from habitat loss and hunting. This exploitation just adds another threat to the health of their populations.

Additionally, the frequently inhumane conditions under which these animals are kept threatens the individual welfare of civets. Unless new regulations are formulated and enforced for kopi luwak “farms,” civets are likely to be continued to be captured and confined, all for the sake of novelty coffee.  A quicker solution is for everyone to reject the notion of kopi luwak and refuse to purchase it, period. I know there are a few companies offering wild-collected kopi luwak, but as long as those purveyors are given a pass, there will be exploiters and liars taking advantage of the market. Just say no to kopi luwak.

More information, including updated links:

C.R. Shepherd (2012). Observations of small carnivores in Jakarta wildlife markets, Indonesia, with notes on trade in Javan Ferret Badger Melogale orientalis and on the increasing demand for Common Palm Civet Paradoxurus hermaphroditus for civet coffee production. Small Carnivore Conservation, 47: 38-41.

Climate change / Coffee and the environment / Research on coffee growing

Is coffee really at risk of extinction?

Recently, a paper was published in the peer-reviewed, open-access journal, PLoS ONE: “The impact of climate change on indigenous arabica coffee (Coffea arabica): predicting future trends and identifying priorities.”

It specifically looked at wild, endemic populations of Coffea arabica in Ethiopia (and a few points in nearby areas). In a nutshell, the authors created computer models using known localities, environmental conditions, and various climate change scenarios to predict current and future distribution of these populations. The models determined a reduction (ranging from very worrisome to nearly complete) in suitable locations in this region by 2080. This is no surprise. I’m not sure I’ve seen any models that do not show some impact on the ranges (whether expansions, contractions, or shifts) of plants and animals under any accepted climate change scenarios. And we all know coffee is a very climate-sensitive species, especially arabica coffee.

It is a big leap to go from what this paper actually examined and concluded to the shrill, frantic headlines and stories pumped out by mainstream  media. For instance, under the headline So Long, Joe? World Coffee Supply Could Be Threatened By Climate Change, US News and World Reports declared “Nearly 100 percent of the world’s Arabica coffee growing regions could become unsuitable for the plant by 2080.” This is way off base, given the study was only looking at wild arabica in the vicinity of southwest Ethiopia. The article also stated that “If Arabica becomes impossible to raise in its native areas, it could wreak havoc on the economies of the mainly third-world countries in which it grows,” which is ridiculous considering that coffee is already grown on millions of acres in dozens of countries around the world where it is not native. Likewise, Salon.com made the even more extreme statement, “By the end of this century, climate change could wipe out nearly all the world’s coffee” in their piece, Coffee beans at risk of extinction.

I could cite more hand-wringing examples of failure by news outlets to make an honest effort at reporting what this paper really said, but you get the gist. As a scientist, journalist, editor, and world citizen, this lack of accuracy disgusts me. First, there is no excuse for it; the paper is open-access and anyone can read it for themselves! Apparently, this dismal reporting stems from incomprehension, laziness, and/or incompetance on the part of writers and their editors, as well as a disregard for actually informing the public in favor of profit for the news outlet via sensationalism.

If you’ve read this far and want a more nuanced analysis of the paper, I’ll give a few of my thoughts.

I thought the  paper was thorough and well-conceived. The bioclimatic modelling used is pretty standard for looking at the distribution of species under future climate change situations. Computer models, of course, are as robust as the data one feeds into them.  In this paper, the bulk of the data used to model current distribution was based on unpublished field work done by one of the authors; the rest was from herbarium specimens or literature reports, some dating back to 1941.  Ergo, it is technically not possible to evaluate the quality of this data. The climate data emphasizes factors like temperature, rainfall, and seasonality. These are all critical for coffee growing, but the models did not integrate other important environmental influences on coffee production such as soil types, microhabitats, and ecological processes, and the authors acknowledge those shortcomings.

The results and discussion provided didn’t stray far beyond these limitations and delivered on the authors intended goals: to identify conservation, monitoring, and research needs for wild, native Coffea arabica. It established baseline data to help assess future impacts of climate change on these populations, having identified suitable localities for them.

Two paragraphs in the discussion are devoted to the implications of the findings for cultivated arabica coffee, and they are also presumed to be negative. Does this mean the news headlines, while not the subject of the actual paper, are true? Not exactly. The authors note that optimum cultivation requirements for arabica coffee will likely become harder to achieve in the face of climate change, productivity will probably be reduced, and more intense management (especially irrigation) will be needed.

Is the potential loss of genetic resources in these populations something to worry about? In their article Climate change threatens sweet smell of morning coffee, Reuters took a stab at trying to interpret what the paper had to say by writing, “Although commercial coffee growers would still be able to cultivate crops in plantations designed with the right conditions, experts say the loss of wild arabica, which has greater genetic diversity, would make it harder for plantations to survive long-term and beat threats like pests and disease.”  Indeed, a reason the authors focused on wild populations of arabica in their native range was that their genes may be valuable for breeding disease and pest resistance and climate resilience into commercially grown coffee. While this is logical, and maybe even likely, the paper did not provide detail on the genetic diversity, number of unique arabica strains, or other features of the coffee being mapped and modelled. In fact, the authors noted that genetic variation in wild arabica still needed to be assessed. Further, other more tolerant species of coffee (primarily Coffea canephora, robusta, and its hybrids) are being used in breeding programs today and probably hold the best hope for resilience in commercial coffee. (This is not to discount the importance of preserving these populations; I’m a strong believer that genetic biodiversity should be preserved regardless of it’s commercial value.)

One point was made in the paper that I thought was not given enough emphasis. The biggest driver of the loss of wild coffee populations has been and is deforestation and land conversion, which themselves exacerbate climate change. We can sit on our hands and watch one of the models in this paper play itself out, with what the authors term as “profoundly negative influence” on coffee. Or we can encourage the production (and consumption) of coffee grown in an ecologically-sustainable manner, using carbon-capturing shade trees and sensible agroforesty techniques — and reward farmers for their troubles by paying more for eco-friendly coffee. The press  could make a real contribution by informing the public on the issues surrounding the sustainability of one of the world’s most popular beverages, rather than thoughtlessly spew out faulty proclamations with little basis in fact and no call to action.

More of my posts on coffee and climate change here.

Davis AP, Gole TW, Baena S, & Moat J (2012). The Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous Arabica Coffee (Coffea arabica): Predicting Future Trends and Identifying Priorities. PloS one, 7 (11) PMID: 23144840

Research on coffee growing

Research: Pollination and fruit set in India

Status of pollinators and their efficiency in coffee fruit set in a fragmented landscape mosiac in South India. Krishnan, Kushalappa, Shaanker, and Ghazoul. 2012. Basic and Applied Ecology 13:277-285.

The role of various types of pollination — self, wind, and insect — on robusta coffee (Coffea canephora) was studied in the Kodagu (Coorg) region in Karnataka state in south India. Robusta coffee is generally thought to be wind-pollinated, with fruit set being enhanced if cross-pollinated by insects.

Many insects (as well as other arthropods and birds) can act as pollinators, but in this study bees made up nearly 97% of the floral visitors to the coffee. The main pollinator was the giant Asian honeybee (Apis dorsata, a relative of the familiar European honeybee).  Apis cerana and Tetragonula iridipennis were the other two bee species that most frequently visited coffee flowers, and together with the giant Asian honeybee comprised 98.3% of all visits to coffee flowers. While pollination can occur from wind, bee pollination increased fruit set by 50% over wind.

Amegilla bee on lantana. This genus of bees were once common in coffee plots, but now feed on non-native lantana flowers. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

The authors noted that in other countries studied, the suite of pollinators usually comprised of many more species, rather than being dominated by so few as in the present study. They looked at a similar, though limited, study of pollinators of coffee done in the same area in 1915.  In that study, Apis cerana was the most common; this species has recently (early 1990s) declined due to a virus. The older study listed the second most abundant bees pollinating coffee as those in the genus Amegilla; in the present study these made up a mere 0.1% of visits.  The authors observed Amegilla bees foraging instead on a non-native invasive plant, Lantana camara. This indicates that invasive species may change the behavior of coffee pollinators — and this role of invasive species deserves more study.

The giant Asian honeybees nest in nearby forests in large trees. The authors concluded that, given the high dependence on pollination by this species, preservation of these trees in remnant forests within the foraging range of the bee is crucial to the successful production of coffee in this area.

This post is in recognition of Pollinator Week, an international celebration of the valuable ecosystem services provided by bees, birds, butterflies, bats and beetles.

Smitha Krishnan, Cheppudira. G. Kushalappa, R. Uma Shaanker, & Jaboury Ghazoul (2012). Status of pollinators and their efficiency in coffee fruit set in a fragmented landscape mosiac in South India. Basic and Applied Ecology: dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2012.03.00

Research on coffee growing

Research: How landscape influences coffee pests

Landscape context and scale differentially impact coffee leaf rust, coffee berry borer, and coffee root-knot nematodes. Avelino, Romero-Gurdian, Cruz-Cuellar, and DeClerk. 2012. Ecological Applications.

In ecology, context is important. Ecosystems are comprised of many interdependent organisms, and those interactions are influenced by the environment at different scales. In the case of coffee pests, that can mean the conditions on an individual coffee plant, in a particular patch of coffee, or on one or many neighboring farms. This study looked at how the surrounding landscape — up to 1500 m around coffee plots — impacted the incidence of several coffee pests.

The authors looked at 29 small plots of coffee within larger plantings in Costa Rica. They wanted to see how different land use practices at different scales might influence coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix), the coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei), and root-knot nematodes (in the genus Meloidogyne).

Populations of the virtually immobile root-knot nematodes did not appear to be correlated with landscape. Not surprisingly, coffee plots embedded in a landscape with a high proportion of other coffee plots facilitated the movement and spread of coffee berry borers.

I found the response of coffee leaf rust to be the most interesting: there were increased epidemics of coffee leaf rust in areas where coffee plots were in a landscape that had open uses such as pasture. The rust spores are spread by wind. The air turbulence produced by gaps of pasture among plots of coffee promoted the release of the rust spores which then dispersed in the landscape.  When the wind turbulence released clusters of spores, they did not travel as far and resulted in locally intense outbreaks of rust.

The landscape-scale effects on the rust and borer varied depending on the distance of the plots from the various landscape features, and also fluctuated during the season, so the effects of landscape are not simple; these are outlined in the paper. However, the results suggest that growing coffee in plots that are separated from others by native forest could hinder the spread of both the borer and the rust, as well as act as reserves and corridors for other biodiversity.

Avelino, J., Romero-GurdiÁ¡n, A., Cruz-Cuellar, H., & Declerck, F. (2012). Landscape context and scale differentially impact coffee leaf rust, coffee berry borer, and coffee root-knot nematodes Ecological Applications, 22 (2), 584-596 DOI: 10.1890/11-0869.1