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Why You Should Buy Organic Coffee

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Title: Why You Should Buy Organic Coffee


1
Why You Should Buy Organic Coffee
  • By Matt Fluck and Akiko Mack

2
Organic Coffee
  • Organic coffee is that which is cultivated and/or
    processed without the use of chemicals of any
    sort including insecticides, artificial coloring
    or flavoring and additives.
  • Coffee beans are seeds from berries that grow on
    shade-loving understory bushes. These bushes
    need the shade of mature trees, the same trees
    that provide habitat and food for many birds and
    insects.
  • Coffee plantations have been called one of the
    most sustainable and environmentally benign
    agroecosystems in Central America.

Traditional Coffee Plantation
3
Benefits of Shade-Grown Coffee
  • Shade trees
  • protect the understory coffee plants from rain
    and sun
  • help maintain soil quality
  • reduce the need for weeding
  • aid in pest control.
  • Organic matter from the shade trees also provides
    a natural mulch, which reduces the need for
    chemical fertilizers, reduces erosion,
    contributes important nutrients to the soil, and
    prevents metal toxicities.

Photo Showing a Traditional Coffee Plantation
where shade coffee is grown. The picture shows
small coffee shrubs underneath a forest of trees.
4
Sun- Tolerant Coffee Producers
  • Starting as early as the 1970s, coffee growers
    began breeding plants that prospered in the
    full-sun, rather than the shade.
  • With sun-tolerant coffee bushes, growers could
    remove trees, slightly increasing the profitable
    area of their fields and the yield of each plant.
  • Sun-tolerant coffee plants require a steady diet
    of agricultural chemicals.
  • Fertilizer- there is no leaf-litter to enrich the
    soil
  • Herbicides- due to sun exposure, weeds invade the
    fields
  • Fungicides- also important to stop growth of
    fungi
  • These chemicals affect the health of plantation
    workers and the health of the wildlife that live
    in the plantation.

5
Migratory Birds and Coffee
Common Migratory Bird Species
  • Traditional coffee plantations can be thought of
    as modified forest habitats.
  • In the midst of altered and shrinking habitat in
    both North and Latin America, migratory birds
    have found a sanctuary in the forest-like
    environment of traditional coffee plantations
  • The studies that have been conducted have found
    that the diversity of migratory birds plummets
    when coffee is converted from shade to sun.
  • A leading team of bird surveyors around Mexico
    and the Caribbean Basin, found that cacao and
    coffee plantations supported the largest numbers
    of forest-dependent migratory birds of any
    agricultural habitats.
  • In the regions most heavily used by migratory
    birds, coffee plantation "forests" cover 2.7
    million hectares, or almost half of the permanent
    cropland. This provides critical woodland
    habitat in mid-elevation areas where most large
    reserves have been destroyed.

American Redstart
Yellow-throated Warbler
Blue-headed Vireo
Black-throated Green Warbler
6
Why Care? The Decline of Migratory Birds
  • Migratory birds play a major role in the health
    and
  • functioning of ecosystems
  • as consumers of insects (especially those that
    defoliate trees)
  • dispersers of seeds
  • as pollinators of flowers.
  • They are also of considerable value to regional
    economies. When forest birds eat insects, the
    result is greater tree growth and a longer period
    between insect outbreaks - services that may be
    worth as much as 5000 per year for each square
    mile of forest land.
  • Millions of people watch birds as a hobby and
    many of them flock to areas where birds
    concentrate, where they spend millions of dollars
    on ecotourism.

7
Major Coffee Companies
  • Starbucks agreed to offer certified organic
    coffee in their 2,700 outlets only four days
    before planned demonstrations. (Even so, the
    outlet still buys fewer than 1 million pounds of
    this type of coffee, a mere 1 of the coffee it
    buys annually.)
  • Maxwell House, Folgers Nestle
  • together they represent about half of U.S.
    coffee sales, but the executives of the company
    have not taken actions towards purchasing
    organic, shade-grown coffee.

8
Some Organic Coffee Companies
9
Sources
  • http//macserv.murdoch.edu.au/HK/research_interes
    ts/projects/east_timor/pictures/big_pics/slide
  • http//highered.mcgrawhill.com/sites/0072452706/st
    udent_view0/chapter/additional_case_studies.htmlo
    rganic
  • http//natzoo.si.edu/conservationandscience/migrat
    orybirds/fact_sheets/default.cfm?fxsht1
  • http//www/watershedradio.org/may2001/051101migra.
    htm
  • http//www.gcrio.org/CONSEQUENCES/vol3no1/songbird
    s.html
  • http//www.counterculturecoffee.com/sanctuary_info
    .htmart1
  • http//www.fordfound.org/publications/recent.artic
    les/docs/Solution_57-62.pdf
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