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Coffee Controversies—Sustainable Coffee?

February 9, 2016

It’s been a while since I wrote an article for my Coffee Controversies series. But I was listening to NPR over the weekend, and there was an update on the struggling Keurig Company. According to BuzzFeed, the company’s sales of its controversial single-serve brewers have fallen for more than a year, despite lots of holiday discount promotions. During the quarter, sales from K-Cup pods were also down by 6 percent—a whopping $62.2 million—from the previous year. 

Consumers have apparently been purchasing lower cost coffee pods since the patent expired on the pod technology. Keurig’s move to get around that with its new Keurig 2.0 brewer, requiring new and different pods, apparently  didn’t set too well with consumers either.

So, three questions come to mind. First, is coffee drinking on the decline? Question two, is the use of single-serve coffee use on the decline? Finally, is the fact that the coffee pods for the Keurig machines are not recyclable having a dent on sales?

Sustaining Coffee

The answer to question one is definitely no. According to the International Coffee Organization (ICO), the estimated number of 60 kg bags of coffee consumed in calendar year 2014 was 150.2 million, reflecting a 2.5% average annual growth rate in global coffee consumption since 2011.

Having now discovered the ICO website, I am wondering how many coffee drinkers know that coffee consumption and production is measured in 60 Kg bags?  I certainly did not. Coffee production was at 143.4 million “bags” of coffee produced in 2015/16, up 1.4% from last year.  Also, while on the ICO website I caught sight of their “sustainability” menu.

The ICO encourages its members to develop a “sustainable coffee sector in economic, social and environmental terms.” Coffee production occurs primarily in the Equatorial zone called “The Bean Belt.” Virtually of the production occurs in developing countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Yemen, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Guatemala.  More developed nations in the mix include Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, and India.  Coffee is in fact one of the most valuable commodities exported by developing countries. Moreover, coffee is often grown by family farmers. For example, in northwestern Uganda there are about 80,000 coffee farming families producing around 3,000 to 5,000 tons of coffee per year.

Environmental concerns, including issues over water use and contamination, have long dogged the industry. To grow enough beans to make just one cup of coffee, about 37 gallons of water (140 liters) are needed. Coffee growing countries such as Ethiopia often have water shortages, a growing concern with climate change. Wastewater creation from the wet milling of coffee can present pollution problems if not managed properly. There have been many campaigns promoting shade grown coffee in order to reduce habitat destruction, fertilizer use, and pesticide use. Shade grown coffee promotes a more natural ecosystem for biodiversity.

The coffee pulp “waste” from growing the beans presents its own issues.  The processing of fresh fruit from which coffee is made produces by-products, including pulp, that constitute about 60% of the wet weight of the fruit. Often contaminated with a mold that can affect the growth of coffee beans if not managed properly, many farmers have turned to composting the coffee pulp.

Columbia sets a good model for composting the pulp. Large coffee farms in Columbia compost the pulp and other residues and spread the finished compost on coffee fields. This not only reduces the potential impacts of the coffee pulp, it reduces the need for chemical fertilizers, and saves farmers money. Coffee residues are composted on a cement floor with a covered roof. The materials are turned every 15 days, resulting in finished compost in four to five months.

On smaller coffee farms, worm composting is more widely used. In the worm composting process, red worms are placed in beds made from bamboo or brick on cement or ground covered with plastic. Coffee pulp is added every three days. Worms are separated from vermicompost two or three times a year. The vermicomposting takes about three months and the resulting compost product is also used on coffee fields.

Sustainable Harvest® reports that since 2008, it has trained thousands of farmers in organic fertilizer techniques. In both Nicaragua and Peru, the organization helped in developing large-scale, self-sustaining composting plants, and issued training videos for use in other coffee producing nations. In both countries, compost use had direct impacts of increasing productivity on coffee plots. Additionally, communities benefited from the income generated from fertilizer sales to improve water systems and plumbing, start a tilapia farm, and build a road to bring fertilizer to more rural farmers.

Time for another cup of coffee…have to get back to Keurig another day!

By Athena Lee Bradley

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