Shade Coffee: a Disappearing Refuge for Biodiversity Shade Coffee Plantations Can Contain As Much Biodiversity As Forest Habitats
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Shade Coffee: A Disappearing Refuge for Biodiversity Shade coffee plantations can contain as much biodiversity as forest habitats Ivette Perfecto, Robert A. Rice, Russell Greenberg, and Martha E. Van der Voort Within the expanding agri- cal biodiversity. In this article we cultural frontier in the trop- discuss the role of shade coffee plan- ics, one can find a variety of The importance of tations in protecting biodiversity. We small, managed forest patches and shade coffee as a refuge focus on northern Latin America, an traditional agricultural systems, area encompassing the Caribbean is- which provide a refuge for forest- for biodiversity may lands, Mexico, Central America, and dwelling organisms. These managed the Andean countries of South habitats are frequently overlooked not be in the total land America. However, many of the is- as potential areas of biodiversity con- sues and conclusions discussed here servation (Pimentel et al. 1992). Fur- it involves, but in its also apply to coffee-exporting coun- thermore, the conservation biology tries throughout the tropics. literature often refers to forest re- location in areas that serves as islands in a sea of devasta- have been particularly The economic importance tion, in which the sea is formed by of coffee agriculture. Although chemically in- hard hit tensive monocultural systems may Coffee was introduced into the New fit well with this perception of low by deforestation World by the Dutch in 1723 (Wrigley 1988). During the twentieth century Ivette Perfecto is an assistant professor it has reached considerable impor- in the School of Natural Resources and biodiversity, many other agro- tance in the world market as an ex- Environment, University of Michigan, ecosystems, especially in the tropics, port crop. Production has tripled in Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1115. Her re- are characterized by high vegetational northern Latin America since World search interests include the transforma- diversity. One such agroecosystem is War II, and area under cultivation tion of agriculture and associated coffee, when managed with tradi- has nearly doubled (UNFAO Pro- changes in biodiversity. Robert A. Rice tional cultural practices. This popu- duction Yearbooks). works on policy issues at the Smithsonian lar beverage, used worldwide for cen- It is hard to overestimate the im- Migratory Bird Center, National Zoo- turies, constitutes a major source of portance that coffee production and logical Park, Washington, DC 20008. household income and foreign ex- exportation has had for northern His interests include land use changes in Latin America and the environmental change for many tropical countries, Latin America. More than 32% of consequences of agricultural modern- especially in Latin America. the world's coffee comes from this ization. Russell Greenberg is the direc- Coffee is traditionally grown un- region, where it is the leading source tor of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird der a canopy of shade trees. Because of foreign exchange. Although cof- Center, National Zoological Park, Wash- of the structural and floristic com- fee is produced on only 7.4% of the ington, DC 20008. His research inter- plexity of the shade trees, traditional total arable land, coffee lands at ests include the ecology of migratory coffee plantations have relatively present take up approximately 44% birds in tropical ecosystems. Martha E. high biodiversity. However, coffee of the area of permanent cropland Van der Voort was a staff researcher at plantations increasingly are being (UNFAO Production Yearbook Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, transformed into industrial planta- 1991). In northern Latin America, National Zoological Park, Washington, DC 20008. She is currently studying tions with little or no shade (Figure coffee plantations cover approxi- nontimbef forest products at the De- 1). The way that coffee production mately 2.7 million ha. This total partment of Wildlife, West Virginia evolves in the coming decades is likely includes roughly 700,000 ha in University, P.O. Box 6125, Morgantown, to have a tremendous impact on its Mexico, 300,000 ha in the Carib- WV 26505. ability to provide a refuge for tropi- bean, 750,000 ha in Central 598 BioScience Vol. 46 No. 8 Figure 1. (Lefr) A sun plantation near San Jose, Costa Rica (photo by I. Pcrfecro). (Right) A traditional shade plantation near Tapachula. Chiapas (photo courtesy of M. Van der Voort). America, and 1,000,000 ha in Co- agrochemicals, modernization inten- lombia. sified in the 1970s. We estimate that almost half of the area in coffee pro- Coffee cultivation techniques duction in northern Latin America had been converted by 1990. The egy for the coffee farmer. Siman Coffee cultivation systems fall along speed and extent of conversion, how- found that modern farms out- a continuum, ranging from the "tra- ever, have been uneven. The percent- produced semi-modern (a combina- ditional" ro the "modern" (Table age of land converted in the region tion that includes some shade reduc- l).1 The modern system is character- varies from as low as 15% in Mexico tion, a change to new coffee varieties, ized by a reduction in shade, in- to more rhan 60% in Colombia (Fig- and at least some use of agrochemi- creased reliance on new high-yield- ure 2). cals) and traditional farms, with ing varieties, and an increase in Modernization was initially seen yields of 1397, 953, and 317 kg/ha, chemical inputs, pruning, and coffee as a way of combating fungal dis- respectively.2 However, the levels of plant density (Coyner 1960,DeGraaf eases, particularly coffee leaf rust production had considerably differ- 19S6). The removal of shade in cof- [Hemilcia vastatrix). The role that ent costs as well; in absolute terms, fee farms helps establish a suite of coffee leaf rust played in plantation the cost (in US dollars) of production characteristics of a coffee cultivation modernization is significant, because for a hectare of modern, semi-mod- system aimed at incteasing yields, at the disease ranks as the most feared ern, and traditional coffee was least over the short run. However, obstacle to production in most cof- $1738.94, S1092.00, and $269.47, with the loss of canopy cover, mod- fee- producing areas (Agrios 1982). respectively. The cost to produce 1 kg ern plantations, also known as sun Early on, coffee leaf rust provided of coffee was thus $1.24 for modern plantations, become more prone to the hook on which the entire coffee coffee, $1.14 for semi-modern cof- water and soil runoff, threatening modernization process hung its hat. fee, and SO.85 for traditional coffee. the long-term snstainability of the Phytopathological reasoning main- Actual profits, of course, vary with system (Rice 1990). tained that less shade would allow world coffee price fluctuations. The One of the most striking features moisture on coffee plants to dry more traditional technology, with a much of the conversion from traditional to readily, therefore reducing fungal lower use of chemical inputs, repre- modern coffee cultivation is the ra- germination success. The arrival of sents a passive production system pidity with which it has occurred. rust in Brazil in 1970 and in Central in which the coffee unit receives After a largely unsuccessful attempt America in 1976 brought to life the little attention in the way of labor in the 1950s to modernize coffee agronomic nightmares that had and/or capital. Traditional produc- growing using new strains and more plagued coffee growers and govern- tion devotes 2% of its expenditures ments in the Old World for genera- to chemical inputs, whereas semi- tions. However, coffee leaf rust has modern and modern production >W* CM* the term modern here, a system also not been as problematic as predicted, spend 19% and 25% on chemical referred to as ;'«*atl«f^fifarrd technified.Tbk and the major motivation behind inputs, respectively. In addition, last term, although cumbersome, is used by modernization has since become in- development agencies and local institution; creased production. : arid describes quire well thj technical and J. J. Siman 1991, unpublished manuscript. industrial approach TO what has heretofore Modernized coffee represents a Tropical Agronomic Center for Research and been a traditional production sjrsrem. major departure in economic strat- Teaching, Managua, Nicaragua, September 1996 599 Table 1. Distinguishing characteristics of traditional and modern coffee production technologies. Characteristic Traditional Modern Coffee variety Tipica, bourbon, maragogipe Caturra, catuai, Colombia, Guarnica catimor Coffee height 3-5 m 2-3 m Shade cover Moderate to heavy, 60%-90% coverage None to moderate, up to 50% coverage Shade trees used Tall (15-25 m), mixed forest trees, Short (5-8 m), legumes; often monocultures legumes, fruit trees, bananas Density of coffee plants 1000-2000/ha 3000-10,000/ha Years to first harvest 4-6 3-4 Plantation life span 30+ years 12-15 years •< Agrochemical use None to low High, particularly fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, nematocides Pruning of coffee Individualized pruning or no pruning Standardized stumping back after first or second year of full production Labor requirements Seasonal for harvest or pruning Year-round maintenance with higher demands at harvest Soil erosion Low High (particularly on slopes) nonharvest labor accounts for the lower total income, organic coffee Shade coffee and biodiversity single largest cost in modernized sys- production resulted in a significantly conservation—an overview tems because it entails an array of higher net revenue (approximately intense cultivation practices such as $350.00/ha), in part because of lower On a geographical scale, the impor- standardized pruning, fertilization, production costs. Furthermore, when tance of shade coffee as a refuge for and insecticide, fungicide, and nema- externalities generated by environ- biodiversity may not be in the total tocide applications to individual mental costs associated with coffee land it involves, but in its location in plants. production (e.g., pesticides and/or areas that have been particularly hard Comparisons have also been made soil erosion) were incorporated into hit by deforestation.