Growing coffee in the shade: Towards agricultural sustainability in Colombia. (2024)

FAQs

What are the environmental benefits of shade-grown coffee? ›

The presence of trees in shade-grown coffee farms, then, can help keep carbon out of the atmosphere, as well as act as a possible buffer to future temperature increases brought on by climatic change.

Shade coffee in Colombia

Various sources [1,2,3] indicate that the proportion of coffee grown under traditional shade ranges from 16 to 40%.

Agroforestry – Planting trees

Agroforestry models – where coffee is grown under the canopy of other trees – are uniquely valuable to coffee cultivation. Trees help absorb carbon dioxide, enrich the soil, reduce erosion, regulate water use and increase biodiversity.

Shade-grown coffee works within the natural ecosystem, contributing to and receiving help from the system. Shade trees provide many nutrients to the coffee plants and the surrounding soil, natural predators help control coffee pests, and the shade trees help protect the coffee crops from frost.

The one disadvantage of shade-grown coffee farming is that it generates lower profits due to the reduced yield of coffee beans.

Shade-grown coffee is Arabica coffee cultivated at high altitudes under the canopy of bigger plants and trees in the rainforest. The coffee bush is a shade-loving plant that flourishes in this micro-ecosystem and produces more even higher quality coffee beans.

Colombia is home to dozens of micro-climates, making it a land that is particularly well-suited for coffee growing. The thousands of nutrient-thick hills and mountains, wet climate, and the high elevation make it easy to grow great authentic Colombian Coffee.

Raise coffee quality, which can lead to higher prices for farmers, as shaded coffee trees generally produce slow-maturing, larger beans with a better flavor profile. Provide farmers with access to specialty markets that reward shade-grown coffee with premium prices.

Coffee production is altering rainforest ecosystems which negatively affect plant and animal species living within. Worldwide, the use of monocrop coffee production is leading to deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution.

One of the main sustainability challenges facing the coffee industry is deforestation. Coffee production is a major driver of deforestation in many countries, as farmers clear land to make way for new coffee plants.

Why is coffee farming unsustainable? ›

Coffee production in its current state is unsustainable. Just like most agricultural practices, mainstream, commercial coffee production takes a huge toll on the environment because it uses a monocultural method of maximizing crop yields while relying heavily on chemical inputs like fertilizers and pesticides.

Most Sustainable Coffee Brewing Method

From coffee pods and filters to expensive bean to cup machines, it turns out that the most sustainable way to make your coffee is using a French press. The French press, also known as a cafetière, requires no filters, no electricity, no fancy pods.

Starbucks started selling its first Mexican coffee in the 1990s, then known as Starbucks Shade Grown Mexico, from the Sierra Madre de Chiapas Mountain range; this variety is now called Chiapas.

Higher quality coffee beans, more often than not, taste better than lower quality beans. It is clear that shade grown coffee is superior to sun grown coffee for multiple reasons, especially for its sustainability, ecological, and flavor benefits.

Better coffee quality: Shade-grown coffee plants grow more slowly, resulting in denser beans with better flavors. Shade-grown coffee farming is an eco-friendly and sustainable way of coffee production that not only benefits the environment but also produces better quality coffee beans.

Coffee growing helps reduce soil erosion, is a useful carbon sink (especially with plantations grown under shade trees), aids good watershed management, helps to maintain a degree of biodiversity, particularly in systems with mixed cropping on small family farms, and can provide a good habitat for many migrant birds ...

Shade grown coffee conserved the soil and original forests. But the huge increase in demand for coffee has transformed more and more production from shade to sun grown coffee. Sun grown coffee requires clearing of forests and because the topsoil is eroded also the use of chemical fertilizers.

On a shade-grown coffee plantation, smaller coffee plants grow in the shade of forest trees. The practice produces fewer coffee beans than growing coffee in the sun, but it is more sustainable because it provides habitat for forest birds.