Background information / Corporate coffee

When birders drink Folgers, part 2

(Part 1 here)

Last Saturday was International Migratory Bird Day. This annual event coincides with the peak of spring migration and is intended to increase awareness of birds and their conservation throughout the Western Hemisphere. Lots of organizations, parks, and refuges have birding events. I was reading about one of these celebrations (I later heard 15,000 people showed up) and the author made this comment on a picture of a throng of birders lined up on the trail: “There is tens of thousands of dollars of camera hardware in this photo, and the total value of optics and camera equipment on the trail would be utterly staggering if it could be tallied.”

I immediately wondered how many of these affluent people spent a few extra bucks to make sure that the coffee they drank supported the birds they were photographing, watching, and enjoying so much.

Probably not that many; I’ve written before about how resistant birders can be to changing their coffee-buying habits. The top reasons I’ve heard over and over are that shade-grown/sustainably-grown coffee is too expensive, or too inconvenient (certified shade coffee, in large part due to lack of demand, can be hard to find). The latter is really related to the former. I can’t imagine anything more easy than ordering coffee online to be delivered to my door, and there is plenty of sustainable coffee available this way. But this adds shipping to the cost, so it again comes down to price.

For the most part, this is a flimsy excuse coming from most active birders. Here are some facts:

  • A 1991 profile [1] of American Birding Association members showed that 46% of members responding to the survey had incomes over $50,000.
  • The same study showed that ABA members spent $3,374 annually on birding, with 74% of that total going toward travel to see birds, and 17% on equipment.
  • Around the same time, a survey of active birders [2] in the general public showed 16% had incomes greater than $50,000 (at a time when the average U.S. income was $20,000).
  • That study provided an annual expenditure per birder of $1,852, of which 71% was travel related.
  • A more recent survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [3] found that 27% of people who lived in households earning greater than $75,000 identified themselves as bird watchers.

I’ve already pointed out that great, sustainably-grown coffee doesn’t actually cost that much on a per cup basis. How about on an annual basis, to put the expense in line with the figures above?

While your mileage may vary, a pound of coffee generally yields about 40 to 45 eight-ounce cups of coffee. If you drink two cups a day, you go through 18 to 20 pounds of coffee a year. If you buy cheap, unsustainable supermarket coffee you probably pay between $5 and $7 a pound. I’m asking you to buy tasty, sustainably-grown coffee from a smaller specialty roaster, at around $10 to $13 a pound, or somewhere around $100 to $150 more a year.

Another report [4] described birders as “… the major, perhaps only, user-group of neotropical migratory birds.” Many of the active birders I know wouldn’t blink an eye at gassing up the car and taking off to see a rare bird hundreds of miles away, and many I know do this several times a year. But they are unwilling to spend the money to make sure those birds are around in years to come. Maybe the goal is to make all birds rare. If so, by drinking cheap coffee, they are doing a good job.

[1] Wauer, R. 1991. Profile of an ABA birder. Birding 23:146-154.

[2] Wiedner, D. S. and P. Kerlinger. 1990. Economics of birding: a national survey of active birders. American Birds 44:209-213.

[3] Birding in the United States: A Demographic and Economic Analysis. Addendum to the 2001 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation (Report 2001-1). 2003. 24 p. (PDF)

[4] Kerlinger, Paul  1993.  Birding economics and birder demographics studies as conservation tools.   In: Finch, Deborah M.; Stangel, Peter W. (eds.). Status and management of neotropical migratory birds: September 21-25, 1992, Estes Park, Colorado. Gen. Tech. Rep. RM-229. Fort Collins, Colo.: Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service: 32-38.(PDF)

Research on coffee growing

Research: Coffee as an invasive plant in India

Brewing trouble: coffee invasion in relation to edges and forest structure in tropical rainforest fragments of the Western Ghats, India. A. A. Joshi, D. Mudappa, and T. R. Shankar Raman. 2009. Biological Invasions 11:2387-2400.

While invasive plant species receive a lot of attention, the focus is often on weed species that compete with crops — not the potential invasiveness of the crops themselves. Coffee is native to Africa, but of course is widely planted in tropical regions worldwide. Both varieties of coffee, Coffea arabica and C. canephora (commonly called robusta) are grown in India.  In the Western Ghats of India, a biodiversity hotspot, coffee is often planted adjacent to fragmented forest reserves. This study looked at the spread of coffee into forest fragments at four sites that adjoined coffee farms, but varied in degree of disturbance.

Both coffee species were found in all the forest fragments, with whatever species that was cultivated in the adjacent farms being the most abundant. Stem density generally decreased as the distance from the the plantation edge increased for the coffee species planted in the adjacent farms. Stem density of arabica increased with disturbance level of the fragment. Robusta did not show such a pattern, and stem density was many times higher than arabica in fragments adjoining robusta farms, including the least disturbed, protected forest fragment. Further, there was a negative relationship between robusta invasion and native shrub density.

Robusta coffee growing in the forest, Anamalais, Tamil Nadu, India. Kalyan Varma, used with permission.

The main consumers and dispersers of coffee in India are the Asian Elephant, Lion-tailed Macaque (Macaca silenus), Sloth Bear (Melursus ursinus), and Brown Palm Civet (Paradoxurus jerdoni). Yet in this study the pattern of dispersal in one fragment, which was separated from the farm by a stream, and the sharp decline of coffee densities beyond 100 meters hints that small mammals might be important agents for dispersal in these systems. Larger mammals have bigger ranges, and the stream would not have acted as a barrier for them.

The authors concluded robusta may have a greater impact as an invasive species than arabica in this region. Whether this has to do with robusta being more adaptable, or just more fecund (robusta coffee plants can produce four times more fruits than arabica plants) needs further study.

I’ve not seen any similar research on the spread of coffee into forest fragments in Latin America. This may be because of a more limited number of potential animal dispersers, and, at least in many parts of Central America, less cultivation of robusta coffee.

You can find a summary of the paper at the Nature Conservation Foundation web site.

Thanks to Kalyan Varma for use of his photo of robusta

Joshi, A., Mudappa, D., and Raman, T. 2009. Brewing trouble: coffee invasion in relation to edges and forest structure in tropical rainforest fragments of the Western Ghats, India Biological Invasions DOI: 10.1007/s10530-009-9423-6

Certifications / Climate change / Coffee and the environment / Rainforest Alliance

Coffee, climate change, and Rainforest Alliance

At the Specialty Coffee Association of America expo, we attended a lecture on climate change and coffee. Several speakers discussed this topic, but I’ll focus on the climate module that Rainforest Alliance is adding to its certification. This was announced at last year’s SCAA meeting (my post here), and RA’s Jeff Hayward provided more details on the program.

Coffee, especially shade coffee, is a global crop that has a relatively lower impact on greenhouse gas emissions and a more positive impact on carbon sequestration than many other crops.There is potential for shade coffee farms to contribute to the mitigation of climate change and generate income for farmers at the same time; I have a previous post that outlines the basics.

Rainforest Alliance has developed around 100 different criteria used to certify farms. A small number are considered required critical standards. Beyond that, certification is awarded once a particular percentage of the remaining criteria are met. RA is evaluating which criteria represent practices that improve carbon storage and mitigate climate change. If those particular criteria are among those that are met by a farm, they would be eligible to receive a ”Rainforest Alliance Plus” or "Climate Friendly" certification. RA is currently testing some assumptions and developing these criteria in Guatemala.

This will help buyers choose coffee that is climate friendly, but depending on what consumers are willing to pay won’t necessarily generate additional income for producers. A second part of RA’s climate program is to work to develop a mechanism for producers to receive payments for carbon credits within existing carbon markets. Since these must be beyond ”business as usual,” existing shade coffee farms might not be able to greatly increase their amount of carbon sequestration. But this holds promise for farms that are growing sun coffee or shade monoculture as they can gain credits for planting shade trees or for reforestation — the more the better. It could also help discourage the conversion of coffee to pasture or less eco-friendly crops. RA is working on pilot carbon credit projects now in Mexico and Nicaragua.

Coffee news and miscellany

Sustainability at the SCAA expo

Having “green” conferences is all the rage the last few years. I’ve been to a few in my field. Of course, a bunch of ornithologists more or less just listens to research presentations — overall not much in the way of consumables. A trade show, on the other hand, is another story. As it was last year, the recent Specialty Coffee Association of America expo was billed as a “green” conference. Here were the measures the organization announced they were taking to minimize the impact on the environment:

  • Part of the fee went to planting trees in a coffee-growing country to make the conference carbon-neutral.
  • Attendee brochures (40 pages) were not mailed out, saving paper and transportation fuel costs. They were available on the expo web site…many stacks of them. The brochures were perfect bound, which may have made them harder to recycle. I didn’t check to see if they were printed on recycled paper, but I believe it was glossy.
  • Participants were asked to fill out session and conference evaluation forms online.
  • All of the many large vinyl banners inside and out of the expo venue (like the ones shown above) will be made into tote bags which were available for pre-order.
  • Coffee grounds were donated to a worm farm or nursery in the Atlanta area.

The real waste at one of these shows occurs on the expo floor. There were hundreds of vendor booths, and many of them offered coffee (or smoothie or tea) samples — in little disposable paper cups. How many thousands of cups were used for 10 seconds before heading to the landfill? Were any made from recycled paper? This bothered us so much last year that this year we brought our own espresso shot glasses and used them. Saves paper, and the coffee tastes better.

The Counter Culture Coffee booth was the only one we noted that solved the problem by using small ceramic cups (29 cents at IKEA), shown here with barista Lem Butler. Their whole booth was inspiring, and keeping with the company goal of zero waste. The exterior was made of Plyboo — a formaldehyde-free, Forest Council-certified bamboo material, while the frames were lightweight aluminum and the countertop stainless steel (all recyclable). Carpet squares were recyclable FLOR carpet tiles, and LED lighting was used. CCC was also using locally sourced dairy products, and their coffee grounds were headed to a local farm for composting.

While the SCAA can’t really dictate that all vendors have booths this green, it would go a long way if they could discourage the use of disposable cups — such as giving out small glasses to registered attendees. I’ve been to conferences where everyone received a coffee mug, and that’s what people used on the coffee breaks. At SCAA, the multiple coffee break stations should certainly have used ceramic mugs rather than paper cups.

Another way the could have cut down on waste might be in the printing of the four-page color newsprint newsletter published daily at the show. There was some useful content in it, but they were discarded all over the place. Could they have sent a copy to everybody via email and/or made them available for printing at print stations instead? There was no indication that the paper it was printed on was recycled, either.

Everybody at the expo got a swag bag — a  burlap tote that had some literature and a few samples of odds and ends. I saw a lot of the innards, particularly the paper stuff, discarded. A literature table might make more sense and be less wasteful, as people could pick up what they were interested in. The bags themselves were stiff and scratchy. Since they were presumably supposed to look like jute coffee sacks, seems like it would have been a cool idea to recycle real coffee sacks, which are a pain in the butt to get rid of, according to roasters I’ve talked to. Personally, I wasn’t that crazy about the bag. However, one of my cats immediately claimed it, maneuvered it in front of the heat vent, and it’s now one of her favorite places to sit. She loves it.

I’ll be the first to admit I have no experience planning a trade show, but the paper waste alone at this expo made me cringe. I think SCAA could have done a lot more to make the event much greener.