SHADE-GROWN COFFEE

Coffee Talk

David L. Gorsline

Shade-grown coffee is a general term used to describe certain aspects that are common to the traditional coffee farms in the Americas and other parts of the globe. The older varieties of Arabica coffee (and some Robusta coffee in Africa) continue to be grown under the shade of trees (often leguminous species) in order to retain and nourish the soil and moderate the heat and light reaching the coffee plants. Farms that mimic forest conditions suit the physiology of coffee, originally an understory plant in the wild. In many cases, the shade trees are of one or a few species that had been planted expressly to shade the coffee. In other places the coffee is grown under thinned forest cover containing a mixture of local species, many of which are used by the farmer. Depending on the species of shade trees and the structure of the tree cover, anywhere from a few to scores of species of resident and migratory birds will use the coffee farm for forage and shelter. (See Greenberg in the December 1996 Birding and Kricher in the February 2000 issue for a discussion of species and other details.)

Ornithologists have documented the importance of shade coffee habitat in the increasingly deforested landscape of the Neotropics. The move to "technify" or "modernize" the coffee sector, begun in the 1970s and continuing today, involves replacing the traditional coffee varieties with newer hybrids that have been developed for sun tolerance and compact growth, therefore yielding more coffee per hectare. The flip-side is that more chemical inputs-fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides-are needed than in traditional cultivation, and, of course, the land is denuded of trees.

The glossary assembled here should be helpful for those birders wishing to understand some of the terms used in the growing discussions over birds and shade-grown coffee. A version of this originally appeared in the February 2000 issue of Birding, the ABA magazine. (Thanks are extended to Scott Krych and Georges Dremeaux for their artwork and to Conservation International for use of their photos.) Words that are underlined indicate cross-reference for the glossary. For more information on non-governmental organizations engaged in related coffee issues, see Coffee Related Resources on the ABA links pages.

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