Clouds In Our Coffee

Wherever you live in the continental United States, in the city or the country, you may find yourself breakfasting to the music of the songbirds who return in the spring. And if you're a coffee drinker, their song is "about you," to use Carly Simon's words. Americans are waking up to the role coffee farms play in the fate of these forest-dwelling migrants, whose populations have been steadily declining. As their winter habitat in wild rainforest shrinks, songbirds are finding shelter on traditional, rustic farms where coffee is grown in the forest shade. In an effort to support such cultivation, the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center (SMBC) is developing a "bird-friendly" coffee label.

SMBC and others are hoping to reverse the trend, since the 1970's, of cutting down forests for large, monocrop coffee farms. While coffee originally came from Africa, where it grew naturally in the Ethiopian forest, Latin American farmers found that it grew easily alongside their other crops, such as bananas and citrus, beneath the canopies of native trees. But Americans' craving for our morning fix spurred the development of fast-growing new coffee hybrids that, unlike the traditional plants, thrive in full sun -- provided they get megadoses of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Our demand is gargantuan: U.S. coffee drinkers -- 47% of the population -- gulp down one-third of world coffee production each year, up from 20% in 1996. Coffee beans are our biggest food import. Our daily average 3.4 cups add up to $4 billion in annual U.S. retail sales. If we can direct more of that demand towards certified organic, shade-grown coffee, we can "have a tremendous impact on its ability to provide a refuge for tropical biodiversity," SMBC's Russell Greenberg, Ph.D., and others wrote in BioScience in 1996.

As things stand, the environment and human health in Latin America are threatened by large, chemically-dependent, monocropped farms. "Per acre, coffee is the third most pesticide-doused crop in the world, after cotton and tobacco," Gregory Dicum and Nina Luttinger write in The Coffee Book. While roasting coffee apparently burns off pesticide residues, the heavy use of pesticides such as parathion regularly poisons farmworkers, birds and wildlife.

Dr. Greenberg and other biologists have noticed a decline in migratory songbird populations over the past 20 years. SMBC biologists discovered that shaded coffee and cacao (chocolate) plantations support over 150 species of birds, a number exceeded only in virgin tropical forest. Studies in Colombia and Mexico have found 94% to 97% fewer bird species in sun than in shade coffee plantations. What's ideal, says Dr. Greenberg, is not the density of trees so much as their stature and structure, and that they be as close to native forest tree species as possible. "One person's shade could be another person's biological desert," he says.

Importance of Certification

Shade-grown coffee has been getting a lot of press, from USA Today to the L.A. Times. But overlooked has been the damage caused by pesticides, and the importance, therefore, of looking for coffee that is certified organic by a licensed third party who regularly inspects the farm. At nearly 2.8%, organic coffee is the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. specialty coffee market. SMBC's "bird-friendly" shade label, which includes organic criteria, should be on the market in the next six months, Bob Rice, SMBC coffee project director, says. "In general, if a coffee is certified organic, it is going to have a good shade to it," he adds.

Just because a coffee says "shade-grown" doesn't mean it's bird-friendly. "At least half of commercial coffees in Central America are shade grown, but with carbofuran pesticide pellets that birds eat," says Adam Teitelbaum of Adam's Organic Coffees. SMBC's bird-friendly coffee will be certified organic by Quality Assurance International.

Helping Small Farmers & Laborers

While organic certification, by default, helps protect farm laborers' health, many "fair trade" coffee companies work directly with worker-owned cooperatives to maximize prices and wages paid, and give back portions of profits to help better living conditions and educational opportunities. In the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch, many small Central American coffee growers were badly hurt, and January's Colombian earthquake also devastated coffee-growing areas. Equal Exchange, an importer and roaster, is selling "hurricane coffee" at a $1-$5 per pound premium and contributing the proceeds to relief organizations. For earthquake victims in coffee regions, the Colombian Coffee Federation is coordinating a relief effort. Equal Exchange, 70% of whose coffee sales are organic/shade-grown, is also certified as "fair trade" by Transfair USA, which certifies over 500,000 small farmers in Latin America, and licenses importers and roasters in this country. Alexander Cockburn, in The Nation, encourages supporting local roasters rather than national operations who have market advantage due to size. If your local coffee sellers aren't licensed by Transfair (which costs 10¢ a pound), ask for verification that they purchase from certified fair-trade farmers.

There's a lot of overlap, and "bird-friendly," "shade," "organic," and "fair trade" labels may ultimately be combined, says Chad Dobson of Consumers Choice Council, which is working towards that goal. Until then, consumers have a growing variety of ecologically and socially responsible coffees to choose from.