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Shady Claims in Coffee

by Madeleine Pengelley, November 12, 2011

We've all seen them. Coffee labels claiming that the coffee inside is "shade grown". But what does it mean?

More than 12 years ago, my husband David Pritchard and I became aware of the problem of sun grown coffee. We had recently converted our garden at home to a native plant garden and were beginning to attract a variety of birds and other wildlife (see). The idea our choice of coffee has a direct positive, or negative, impact on our newly attracted neighbours had us taking immediate action. At that time, however, there was zero awareness of the problem.

I think that if we had gone out to the market and found a package of coffee with a label claiming that the coffee inside was "shade grown" our lives would have been very different. We would have accepted the claim as true, shifted our purchases to that coffee and I would still be drinking it in my information technology consulting practice. We might never have learned how shady unverified label claims can be.

But despite looking in various channels we did not find any shade grown coffee. So we thought "well maybe we should start a cafe that offers shade grown coffee" (we were ready for a life change... but we had no idea where we were going!). That option was stopped in its tracks when we found that there were no roasters offering shade grown coffee either. So, being the adventuresome types with all kinds of science in our backgrounds, we discovered home roasting. There was some unroasted coffee available online that was not only shade grown, but certified Bird Friendly by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center... wow, some credentials! The Smithsonian Institution??? for real!

There is another post budding here about the delicious (and smokey disastrous!) results of learning about home roasting. But the short version is we discovered real coffee.

We thought it was a no-brainer to start a roasting business offering this incredibly tastey new drink we call "boutique coffee" that is grown in conditions that preserve habitat. Everyone loves coffee. Everyone loves birds. Better coffee, conserving bird habitat. Should be obvious, right?

Sadly no. It seems as the awareness of the problem of sun coffee grew, the purveyors of "shade grown" coffee options grew faster, which sounds great, until you realize that most of this so called shade coffee is not actually helping the birds.

Studies have shown that as shade trees are thinned, which there is constant pressure to do, the ecosystem suddenly stops functioning. Good shade requires several interrelated conditions be in place. The Bird Friendly certification defines these conditions and teaches organic inspectors how to identify them onsite. They are things like having a certain density of shade, layers of foliage, leaf litter, and others. It takes two weeks for a trained organic inspector to learn how to quality a coffee farm as Bird Friendly.We have learned that in the words of Dr. Robert Rice of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center "All shade does not good shade make". In other words, it is not actually the shade that makes habitat, it takes a functioning ecosystem.

We started out with a few certified Bird Friendly coffees that were available from like-minded importers and filled out the line with "shade grown" offerings. Over a few years we awaited the appearance of more certified Bird Friendly certified coffees, but they never appeared. So we started pushing back through the supply chain and what we found was alarming. Most of the "shade grown" coffees we were purchasing were grown in shade yes, but not certifiable shade. In other words, it was not a biodiverse ecosystem of rustic shade. Either the shade was too thin, or the species were not native, or the shade was from banana trees. In some cases, it was just plain sun grown coffee with some shade around the edges.

We were horrified.

And studies show that partial shade supports virtually no more bird species (and in fact, no more butterfly species) than does sun coffee. Partial shade, even shade with 53% shade cover, does not support biodiversity. On the other hand, certified Bird Friendly farms are shown to be the next best thing to virgin rainforest in supporting biodiversity.

So we set out to correct the situation. We set up a working group of growers, importers, roasters and retailers to discuss the problems and solutions. We decided to do whatever it takes to accelerate our conversion to certified shade coffee. We started a fund that will reduce the burden of becoming certified. We identified origins that we would like to source Bird Friendly coffee from, and we went looking for the coffee. At the same time we challenged all coffee marketers to get with the program. The message is that if your coffee is grown in certifiable shade, then get it certified.

Here's the thing... there is still little awareness about coffee and habitat. It can, and should be such an easy win. But if this small group of customers who are motivated to change their buying habits are purchasing shade coffee based on an unverified claim, then there is no incentive for coffee marketers to get it right.

On several occasions loyal Birds and Beans customers have approached other roasters about bird friendly coffee, and in every case the marketer said that their coffee was bird friendly, but "just not certified". We know this is not true as we know that some of the origins offered (such as Kenya) have no shade coffee at all, never mind certifiable shade. In one case a roaster claimed all their coffee was bird friendly, just not royalty paid. This roaster did take up our challenge and join the Bird Friendly program, but guess what? It turns out that only a couple of their offerings are Bird Friendly certified.

This one is easy, look for the Bird Friendly certification seal. If you can't find any certified Bird Friendly coffee from your favourite origin, then choose certified Rainforest Alliance. They use less strict criteria, but they do verify that the coffee grown where there was once rainforest is grown in rustic shade. If you can't find any of either, skip the coffee until your online order from Birds and Beans arrives at your door.

The pressures to degrade habitat are relentless. As roads are built into ever more remote areas, the trees, and the habitat for which they are a keystone, go out. If we want to conserve the phenomenon of songbird migration, we must make the trees worth more as part of a functioning ecosystem than they are as lumber. That means we have to make sure that we reward growers for conserving them by purchasing their amazing coffee.

So what does a "shade coffee" label claim mean? It means that the goodwill of caring consumers is being misdirected to ever eroding partial shade conditions in which biodiversity is eradicated.

Be certain. Buy certified.

Look for the seal.

Women in Coffee

by Kirsti Piirtoniemi, January 12, 2010

Birds and Beans Inc. is well known for its certified Bird Friendly®, organic, fairly traded, shade grown coffees, but did you know that we also offer a women-friendly blend?

Our coffee from El Salvador Eco Cafe is directly imported from the estate located in the hillside of Santa Ana volcano, about 3000ft above sea level. The taste is always of the best quality thanks to plenty of native shade plants that grow around it to make it certified organic and Bird Friendly®. At the same time, Eco Cafe is a member of the International Women's Coffee Alliance (IWCA), an organization committed to "empowering women in the international coffee community to achieve meaningful and sustainable lives," and "to encourage and recognize the participation of women in all aspects of the coffee industry" (www.womenincoffee.org).

The IWCA puts women's rights and issues at the forefront of the coffee business. Unfortunately, long-standing patriarchal or "machismo" attitudes are still prevalent in most coffee growing regions. In the international coffee market, women's work is often undervalued and poorly compensated even though the majority of farmers are women. They often experience higher levels of physical, social and economic discrimination and/or abuse and lower levels of health and education compared to their male counterparts. Because women bear the burden of domestic work in addition to any paid work, they are typically left with little unstructured time. In this respect, women are often involuntarily excluded from important decision-making processes that impact their livelihoods.

The IWCA's work is significant because promoting women's co-operation and leadership in coffee increases not only the well-being of women farmers but also the standard of living for their families and even their communities. I experienced this first hand in 2007, when I visited a coffee co-operative in Costa Rica. The fact is simple, women have an incredible amount of influence with regard to meeting the basic needs of their families and communities. Through social groups and networks such as the IWCA, women can interact with each other, pool their economic and human resources, and collectively decide how those resources will be used or invested. Thus, to grow and sustain healthy communities, women must first live free of suffering and be allowed the opportunity to defy and challenge discriminatory attitudes that disable them from meeting their full potentials. The more opportunities women have to engage in local financial markets, such as with Eco Cafe in El Salvador, the more likely they, their families, communities and even countries will benefit because of positive reverberation effects.

Women coffee farmers and the IWCA are incredible agents of change. By supporting a farm that is an IWCA member, consumers can help support women's empowerment in the coffee industry and help women farmers to live full and productive lives. In an increasingly interdependent and interconnected global economy, a world fit for women coffee farmers is also a world fit for consumers in the north. If all citizens are allowed the opportunity to reach their potential, all of our nations will thrive.

In my opinion, gender justice has never tasted this good.

Cruelty Free Eating

by Madeleine Pengelley, November 2009

As a sustainability advocate I'm often asked if I'm vegan. I'm not. For those of you who are not familiar with the term, vegans, like vegetarians, do not eat meat, but unlike vegetarians, neither do they eat cheese, eggs or other products derived from animals. Some will not purchase cloths made of leather or even wool. Why would anyone have such an extreme view? Because, like me, vegans are appalled by treatment of animals on factory farms... and almost all farms in operation today are factory farms.

If you still imagine animals living idyllic lives on family farms, you need to get informed. Websites like FarmSactuary.org, Chicken Out! and Farm Forward are good sources of information. Most livestock is raised in conditions that would be considered criminal for a pet dog, yet the entire industry raises animals in cramped cages so small animals cannot turn around, never see the outdoors, and are unable to exhibit natural behaviors. Put plainly... it is cruel so its cheap. Unacceptable.

So why am I not vegan? Well, if cruelly produced animal products were my only choice I would be. However, there are more traditional farms out there and I want to support them. While vegans are ignored by farming industry, I am demonstrating that I'm willing to pay more to provide a cruelty free conditions for the animals.

So if you come into Birds and Beans, you'll find a menu without cruelty:

• Our own freshly roasted boutique coffees are certified organic, shade grown and fairly traded. Good for people, good for birds, good for health.
• organic milk from happy Harmony cows is the best tasting milk for a latté
• In our baking and egg salad we use organic eggs, the best option for egg laying hens according to Chicken Out!
• Our tuna salad is made from tuna certified by Earth Island Institute as sustainably harvested with minimal "by catch"
• For sandwiches we serve ham, beef and turkey slices raised cruelty free by Rowe Farms
• We use organic cheddar and swiss cheeses from L'Ancetre where authentic taste comes from treating the cows with respect.

We are all going to die, the question is how we live our lives while we are here.

Has the "Green Movement" Lost the Forest and the Trees?

by Madeleine Pengelley, September 22, 2009

In all the talk of global warming, carbon taxes and offsets, and energy efficiency, we seem to have lost the notion of wildlife habitat from the "green" movement. I must say that over the last 5 years this technification of the green movement has been a surprise to me. I thought the green movement would raise the awareness of disappearing wild spaces and rush to their preservation, but so far not.

At Birds and Beans we're all about habitat... the preservation and restoration of good habitat for our migrating birds. As is true throughout the world, wild habitat has disappeared or is disappearing throughout Central and South America where our songbirds spend their winters. The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has determined that certified Bird Friendly® coffee farms are a sanctuary for these beautiful songbirds that would have nowhere else to go. They spend the winter in the forest like ecosystem above the coffee plants where they find food and shelter.

We are at a crossroads of man. Will we North Americans, who have squandered so much of our natural environment in favour of all the things that have caused global warming and other environmental problems, continue to ignore the needs of the other species we share this world with? Will we continue to happily swallow the slogans of greenwashers and leave behind a world barren of wild creatures for our children?

Maybe not if we know what we can do. Each of us needs to use the tool that got us into this mess to get us out: Our discretionary spending. We can forgive ourselves for our trip to this point. We didn't know the consequences. But now we do.

If we care to protect the phenomena of the spring and fall songbird migrations, truly a wonder of the natural world, we have to ensure a forest like habitat for the birds in their wintering grounds. We can do it and it is simple. We can support the farmers who grow their coffee with traditional methods under a diverse shade canopy certified with criteria developed by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

Buying our certified Bird Friendly coffee will be perhaps the most enjoyable thing you can do to preserve numbers of our migratory birds. The traditional tending is obvious in the cup. Each farm or cluster has unique flavours. Each of us can take a moment to enrich our lives with the simple pleasure of forgotten coffee flavours, while supporting farmers who share our concern for the migratory birds and preserving the phenomena of migration itself.

Lets get the word out!

Only coffee carrying the Bird Friendly® seal has been evaluated against criteria developed by the scientists at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

Be Certain. Buy Certified.™