Article – People who love forests consume sustainable coffee

We live in a period when information gets to us from different platforms and media, and that is very good. But this popularization of knowledge has also brought something as lethal as misinformation: bad information. When these news have to do with important themes such as forest preservation one should be even more careful.

This is what we are going to talk about: the complex relationship between agriculture and forest. One should not be naive and say that the production of food in the world has not taken place based on deforestation. This has always been a fact and all over the world where agriculture frontiers are concerned, this can still be observed. Nevertheless, something must be clear: there is a great difference between sustainable production of food and environmental degradation. Brazil is very rich in good and bad examples and it is necessary not to generalize to avoid creating prejudice and unfair judgment.

Embrapa has advocated that agriculture must have a sustainable perspective and has constantly pursued, in partnership with other institutions, new technologies aiming exactly that. In this context, there is a new model of integrated agricultural production, which has become more and more popular in the country, encompassing several combinations of agricultural, livestock and forest components.

As a result, we have different integrated systems, such as tillage-livestock-forest (TLFI), tillage-livestock (TLI), silvopastoral (SSP) or agroforestry (SAF). Currently, there are 15 million hectares in the country where different formats of TLFI strategy are used and we estimate that for the next 10 years there will be more than 42 million.

If in the past agriculture went hand in hand with environmental degradation and deforesting, this reality is no longer true for many of the main food crops in the world, and among them, coffee is highlighted.

One can say that this grain that has built cities and is the most consumed beverage in the world after water, can represent a vital tool for the social inclusion and development, life quality and environmental preservation in Brazil, especially in the Amazon region. This is not a dream, it is a reality.

The adoption of technologies is the path for sustainability

In the current 2020 harvest, the expectation of coffee production in Brazil is 60 million 60 Kg bags, harvested from 1.8 million hectares. But in order to demonstrate the evolution of coffee growing in the last decades, two low production crops (negative two-year period) will be compared, 2001 and 2019.

In 2001, Brazil had 2.6 million hectares of coffee planted– 2.2 million in production and 400 thousand in formation – which produced 31 million bags. For the 2019 harvest, the production was 49 million bags, cultivated in 2.1 million hectares – 1.8 million in production and 319 thousand in formation.

In observing the graphic of historical pattern of coffee production in Brazil – data provided by the Companhia Nacional de Abastecimento (The National Supply Company) – Conab, one can notice that between the years 2001 and 2019 there was a decrease of 19% in cultivated area, about 500 thousand hectares less. But contrary to what would be expected, the grain production increased 58% during the period.

This higher yield in the tillage was mainly motivated by the incorporation of new technologies in the field, which made the average productivity in the areas go up from 14 to 27 bags per hectare – an increase of 93%.

Furthermore, despite the constant renovation in the tillage, in an average rate superior to 6% per year, this did not reflect in an increase of the cultivated area throughout the last two decades. This proved that formation areas are mostly substitution of obsolete plantings for others that are more technological.

Among the new incorporated technologies in coffee growing we can mention: genetic breeding and selection, irrigation management, efficient special management, soil conservation, and integrated management of pests and diseases. All of this made Brazilian tillage more sustainable and efficient.

The numbers presented on the graph below show that the evolution of coffee growing in Brazil has nothing to do with deforestation. The country strengthens its position as the “coffee nation”, being responsible for about one third of the world’s production.

Coffee growing in the Amazon Region

Brazil is one of the main players in the production chain of coffee in the world. It is the largest producer and exporter and the second largest consumer in the world. It has a diversified and assorted coffee growing. A true sensorial pallet, reproduced in scents and flavors originated from tillage of the arabica and canefora species (conilon e robusta), cultivated from north to south in the country. A great example of this is present in one of the most emblematic regions in the world: the Amazon region.

In order to illustrate what happens with coffee production in this region we are going to talk about the State of Rondônia which according to the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) – IBGE, is responsible for 97% of all the coffee produced in the Amazon region. This state is the fifth largest coffee producer in the country and the second producer of the canefora species. If coffee growing in Brazil evolved as a whole, the leap in the production chain in the State of Rondônia was of a quantic nature.

Coffee in the Amazon region is not something recent. According to historical reports, the first coffee tillage in Brazil was cultivated in northern lands, in the State of Pará, in 1727. Afterwards it was taken to the southeast region of the country, which was more developed at that time, and it took the shape we know today. Coffee only started to have economic importance for the Amazon region again in the 70’s with the pioneers who came to explore the region. They came especially from the States of Espírito Santo, Paraná and Minas Gerais.

It was a period of great territorial expansion of the tillage in the north of the country. However, the coffee that was produced there was considered of low quality and the plants not very productive; a result of nearly extractive agriculture activities and low efficiency in the use of land.

As it happened in the whole country, the coffee growing in the Amazon region increased. In 2001, the State of Rondônia already counted with 318 thousand hectares of tillage – 245 thousand in production and 73 thousand in formation – which produced 1.9 million bags and still kept a low technology pattern, with average productivity of eight bags per hectare.

Currently the production expectation for the 2020 harvest is over 2.3 million bags, produced in a planted area 78% smaller than the one from 2001, and with 71 thousand hectares, 65 thousand in production and six thousand in formation. In almost two decades, the productivity evolved to 36 bags per hectare, thanks to the producers who, as each year passes by, dedicate more to the use of technologies based on sustainability.

If Brazil has done its homework in the last years, the coffee growers in the Amazon Region have done extra work. If there is a region in the terrestrial globe where it is possible to rapidly increase its coffee production without one single hectare of deforestation, this place is located in the State of Rondônia.

In simple calculations, if we return to the status of cultivated area from 2001 and the current productivity, the state would produce more than 11 million bags of coffee. Yes, the answer for an increasing demand of world coffee production may find its place in the Amazon Region. See this incredible evolution in the last years in the graph below.

“Green forest trade” for the Amazonian coffees

Having said that, it becomes clear that the recurrent argument of the bond between the coffee growing production and deforestation does not proceed. Not only the coffee growing has reduced the area used for tillage, but it has also made it more efficient and productive. And I dare say that people who love forests should consume more Brazilian coffee – especially the ones from the Amazon Region. The world coffee market already values fair trade and could start paying a “green forest trade” for Amazonian coffee with ecological bias.

Coffee growing can genuinely be sustainable and an ally for the forests’ preservation. Since it presents a high economic yield per hectare when compared to other more extensive ones, it can sustain the life quality of coffee growers and their families in small rural units. This represents less pressure on the forest and less susceptibility for these agriculturists to start environmental predatory practices.

Only in the State of Rondônia, the coffee growers form a real army of more than 17 thousand families who have coffee as their main source of income. These producers are almost one fifth of all the rural establishments in the state. Keeping the economic viability of these families in the field should be a goal for the whole coffee production chain as well as for the people who worry about the forests in Brazil – especially in the Amazon Region.

More quality, inclusion and recognition

A demonstration of the evolution of coffee growing in the Amazon region is that it has started the process of recognition, which is to become the first Geographical Indication of sustainable canefora coffee in the world. We mean the “Região Matas de Rondônia” which produces the Robustas Amazônicos, and it is responsible for approximately 80% of all the coffee produced in the Amazon Region.

In addition, preserving a forest has never been so pleasant. The Robustas Amazônicos, whose unique eccentricity and sensorial characteristics have conquered the attention of refined coffee consumers in Brazil and all over the world, are the theme for the largest contest of the species in Brazil, the “Concafé”. Besides awarding every year the best coffees produced in the state, it also awards the most sustainable tillage. It is not only about producing in quantity and quality: the evolution chain also needs to make sure the environment is preserved for next generations.

In the Amazon Region, coffee also supports something that sometimes is completely forgotten in preservation and sustainability discourse: the human factor. Dwellers of this region depend on environmental resources to survive and they need to look for ways to live harmoniously with the environment.

The State of Rondônia has given a good example. Initiatives of social insertion are happening in an organic and natural way along with the production chain. Amazonian coffee growing has never been so diversified and inclusive. Women, youngsters and the indigenous population are essential and they move the tillage. The “Aliança Internacional do Café” (The International Coffee Alliance) – IWCA in Brazil has in the State of Rondônia one of its most beautiful chapters.

The protagonism of the original people who inhabited Brazilian forests before any pioneer is also an accomplishment of Amazonian coffee growing. The indigenous people who have cultivated coffee in their lands for more than 30 years, now begin to see in the production of the fine Robustas a sustainable way to obtain financial resources in the forest.

Although this may seem revolutionary, it shouldn’t be something that extraordinary. Doesn’t coffee have its origin in the glades and edges of African forests? Then it would be a sort of rescue. The coffee from the Amazon Region is above all a fusion of scents and flavors – a great blend of tradition, technology and origin.

Preserving the Amazon Forest means to keep our capacity of taking one’s breath away when facing the beauty and riches already discovered and hidden in such an important and emblematic region.

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*Enrique Anastácio Alves has a Doctorate Degree in Agricultural Engineering and since 2010 he has acted as a “A” researcher at Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation- Embrapa, in the areas of coffee harvest, post-harvest and beverage quality. Contact: enrique.alves@embrapa.br.

Embrapa Rondônia

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