“…But our pride is in the name of the LORD our God.”
~Psalm 20:7
One of my classes this semester is Humans in the
Tropics. Throughout my time here,
we have “Humans Days,” where the whole day from 8:00am to 6:00pm is spent
studying and experiencing the daily theme. So I got to spend my birthday this year learning about
agriculture.
We focused primarily on coffee, and also touched upon other
commodity crops grown in the tropics.
Beyond just production and consumption, we learned about and analyzed
the environmental impacts of these crops, as well as the economic and social
justice issues closely tied.
To begin the day (after a lecture on agriculture in the
tropics) we visited a local, organic family-owned coffee plantation, owned by
Eugenio. At the farm we learned
about coffee production, from farmer to your cup, and also explored sustainable
growing practices. Sustainability
is more than just organic practices.
It takes into consideration maintaining biodiversity on the farm,
usually implies shade-grown coffee, conserves resources, and is healthy and
economical for the farmer. In
practice, these criteria are very difficult to meet.
Eugenio’s farm is sustainable and organic. Six different varieties of coffee are
grown on the farm, along with a host of other crops grown for subsistence and
occasionally for profit. All the
coffee plants are shade-grown, meaning other trees on the farm are present and
adding to forest conservation and biodiversity. Some crop is lost because organic practices are used, but
ecotourism supplements the profit for Eugenio to make a living. (Ecotourism is basically what the whole
tour of the farm was about. He
will make more money in tours than he ever will in coffee at his farm).
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| Coffee beans on the tree! |
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| A banana tree (Musa acuminata) |
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| A Trigona bee nest in a Ficus tree on the farm |
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| A view of part of the farm... Can you tell? |
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| I got to plant a coffee tree! |
After we had walked around the farm a bit and sampled all
the crops, we looked at how the beans were shelled, washed, and dried. They were then stored for up to a year
before roasting and sold shortly after that for maximum flavor. The farm here also harvests and
processes sugar cane. (If you know
me you know how much I like sugar…)
I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the tour.
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| Hand crank to shell the ripe coffee beans |
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Mechanism used to juice the sugar cane!
And yes I ran around in a circle to help. |
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The sugar juice would then be boiled in this
large vat to condense the sugar into syrup. |
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Eugenio explaining how the syrup is then put into a mold
and dried to form blocks of delicious sugar. |
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All the forms of sugar that I sampled...
Sugar juice, sugar blocks, and straight up sugar cane! |
After our interesting and fun tours we went back to the
classroom to learn all of the school related stuff that I’m supposed to know…
Here is a general synthesis of the environmental, economic,
and societal issues related to coffee production adapted from an assignment for
school (so that I can validate in this post that I actually learned something
other than how to make coffee), however my brain is too tired at present to
synthesis this into an informative but less academic script.
Like
many agricultural commodities in the 21st century, coffee production
is closely tied with the environment, economy, and society of local and global
populations. Introduced to Costa
Rica in the early 1800s, production has since expanded and become a sizable
part of Costa Rica’s economy, representing the third most profitable cash crop
for Costa Rica with nearly 82 million kilograms of coffee exported in 2007
alone (International Coffee Organization). The environmental impacts of coffee
production range from soil erosion to excessive pesticide use and water
pollution, though these impacts could be minimized through better management
and sustainable business practices (Clay, 2004). Additionally, many people were forced into impoverished
situations following the crash in global market coffee prices caused by
overproduction and deregulation of the coffee industry.
Coffee
is just one of the many food items that can be added to an ever growing list of
environmental and societal mishaps.
While work is being done to improve labor conditions and wages across
the world through Free Trade and other initiatives, and environmental impacts
are starting to be taken into account with organic and sustainable growing
practices, real change is yet to be seen.
Deforestation remains an issue, with higher yield and shade grown
alternatives slowly climbing in popularity. These methods however are rarely profitable to the farmer,
and are not economically sustainable to large monocultures (Niesten et al,
2004).
It
is no surprise that areas of great biodiversity coincide with areas exhibiting
impeccable agricultural potential.
Year round temperatures minimally fluctuate and copious rainfall in many
areas provide optimal conditions for productivity, promising success for
monocultures throughout the tropics.
Many countries in the tropics are built heavily, if not solely, on an
agricultural economy. But despite
the hopes for high yield and agricultural success, many farmers still remain in
poverty. The export dependence of
these commodity crops (such as cocoa and coffee) is extremely high for many
tropical countries ranging from 55% for Brazil to 95% for Sri Lanka (Talbot,
2002). High dependency on one or
few crops can quickly lead to an unstable economy as the global supply and
demand of these crops fluctuates.
Given the nature of commodity crops, they are often the first foods to
crash when the global economy is struggling. In times of economic hardship, demand for cocoa or coffee
may drop significantly, while demand for corn, soy, or wheat may remain
relatively stable. The
boom-and-bust nature of these commodity crops has left the farmers of many
tropical countries struggling to rise out of impoverished situations. A surplus of crop is often planted in
times of economic depression in an effort to raise profits through quantity
produced, consequently compounding the issues of deforestation and
overproduction and lowering the price of coffee further (Clough, 2009).
It
is evident that given these situations, the social implications of coffee
production are dismal at best.
Historically speaking, individual farmers have suffered while large
monocultures profit at the expense of their laborers. A long line up of steps between the third world farmer and
the first world consumer, with each check point keen on making money, results
in less income for the farmer and profits congregated in the developed world
(Nelson, 2000). Many farmers feel
dependent on coffee due to lack of any other economic alternative, and their
livelihoods are based on an industry that fails to meet their basic needs. Farmers around the world depend on a
trade that earns less than $2 per day (Houston, 2012).
The
culmination of environmental, economic, and societal crisis in the coffee industry
calls for the need of drastic reform focused on reducing deforestation of
tropical ecosystems, diversification of commodity crop-based economies in
tropical countries, and reducing the dependence of individual farmers and
families on crop production. While
change is yet to be made, strategies are being developed and tested around the
world in the hope of lowering environmental degradation and biodiversity loss
while improving lives around the world.
Ok, now that we have that out of the way (no offense taken
if you chose to skip over that last part) my day ended with Skype dates with
friends, family, and last-but-not-least birthday cake!
References
Clay, J., 2004, World Agriculture and the Environment: A
commodity-by-commodity guide to impacts and practices, Island Press.
Clough, Y., Faust, H.,
Tscharntke, T., 2009, “Cacao boom
and bust: sustainability of agroforests and opportunities for biodiversity
conservation,” Conservation Letters 2
(2009): 197-205.
Gooding, K., Sweet like chocolate? Making the coffee and cocoa trade work
for biodiversity and livelihoods, The Royal Society for the Protection of
Birds.
Houston, H., Wyer, T., 2012,
“Why sustainable cocoa farming matters for rural development,” Center for Strategic and International
Studies [online] http://csis.org/publication/why-sustainable-cocoa-farming-matters-rural-development
McMillan, M., Masters, W.,
2000, “Understanding the political economy of agriculture in the tropics,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics
82: 738-742.
Nelson, V., Galvez, M., Social impact of ethical and conventional
cocoa trading on forest-dependent people in Ecuador, Natural Resources and
Ethical Trade Programme.
Niesten, E., Rice, R., Ratay,
S., Paratore, K., 2004, “Commodities and Conservation: The need for greater
habitat protection in the tropics,” Conservation International: Center for
Applied Biodiversity Science.
Talbot, J., (2002), “Tropical
commodity chains, forward integration strategies and internalional inequality:
coffee, cocoa, and tea,” Review of
International Political Economy 9:4 (November): 701-734.
