Organic Coffee Facts

CC Flickr photo courtesy of blindedbythebite.
Why drink organic coffee? Consider these facts.
If you’re like most people, then coffee probably plays a prominent role in your life.  Indeed, we collectively consume 2.5 billion cups of coffee each day!  But not all that coffee is good for us or for the environment.
Non organic coffee is grown with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and its production can wreck havoc on sensitive ecosystems when grown incorrectly.  Although organic coffee is now an alternative available to consumers, most people still don’t drink it.  Here are a few facts on coffee production and how it impacts our environment:
  • Coffee evolved under the rainforest canopy.  Although coffee started out as a shade-loving shrub, the high demand for coffee led to full-sun plantations, which required large quantities of fertilizers and pesticides.
  • Full-sun coffee plantations lead to deforestation.  37 of the 50 countries with the highest rates of deforestation are coffee producers.  The top 25 coffee exporters lost an average of 27 thousand square miles of forest annually during the end of the twentieth century.
  • Non-organic coffee often leads to habitat loss.   Coffee grown under full sun does not supply adequate habitat for native species.  Indeed, full sun coffee plantations provide habitat  for 90% fewer species than do shade-grown coffee plantations.
  • Organic shade grown coffee combats global warming.  Shade grown coffee plantations include a diverse array of tree species that provide a shade-giving canopy over coffee plants.  These coffee plantations add oxygen to the environment while removing greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
  • A study conducted in the late eighties found that coffee plantations in Central America polluted more than 29 million gallons of water daily.  This is the equivalent of a city with 4 million citizens dumping their sewage into the local rivers day after day.  Today’s eco-friendly organic farms use less water and make an effort to dispose of it properly.
  • Despite the effects of non-organic coffee production, the vast majority of coffee is non-organic.  Indeed, in 2006 not even one percent of the total coffee consumed was organic.
  • In Colombia, a coffee supplier which has mostly full sun coffee plantations, more than 440,000 tons of chemical fertilizers are applied to coffee crops.
  • Consumers who buy organic do make a difference.  Although few plantations are organic, shade grown, or fair trade, the higher market value of these coffees  encourages more farmers to revert to environmentally friendly farming.  Even Starbucks has begun to support forest conservation.
The next time you grab a cup of coffee, consider whether it is organic or not.  The  environmental impact of improperly cultivated coffee is simply too great to ignore.  It is likely that most people don’t buy organic coffee because they don’t realize the impact of non-organic coffee.  By educating ourselves we can begin to shift coffee production toward a more positive direction.
For more information on organic coffee and the environmental impact of coffee cultivation, check out these resources:

Organic Trade Association