Birds and Coffee
Made in the Shade
We chose our name to highlight the link between the cultivation of coffee and its impact on ecosystems around the world. The songbird migration that we, as North Americans, witness each year is one of the true natural wonders of the world. It is endangered, along with the species of songbirds and a way of life for small family farms in South and Central America.
Songbird populations are dropping due to loss of habitat in their summer breeding grounds, on their migration routes and perhaps most of all in their wintering grounds in South and Central America. Tropical rainforests are being clear-cut to and replaced by industrial farming enterprises with no regard for the impact on the environment. In many regions the last refuge for our migratory birds and other wildlife are shade coffee farms, yet even these are fast disappearing.
Coffee is naturally a small shade loving tree. It was traditionally grown under the canopy of the rainforest with other shade loving agricultural crops. Grown in this way coffee is easily cultivated without agrochemical inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides) so is well suited to be grown organically and in harmony with the natural environment.
In the last couple of decades the coffee industry developed coffee trees that can tolerate the sun and produce higher yields. The clear-cutting was on and so was the shift from one of the lowest impact crops on the environment to one of the highest. Farms shifted from shade covered polyculture with no or little use of agrochemicals to a monoculture of coffee requiring huge quantities of fertilizer, insecticide and herbicide.
This industrial style cultivation eradicates the winter homes of our migratory birds by destroying the forest like habitat and through chemical poisoning. Their alarming decline is the wake up call of a collapsing eco-system.
Fortunately many small growers continue to grow coffee in the traditional way on farms with shade canopies. Others, seeing the destruction of their land are returning to the practices of their youth. We have much to learn from these people who preserve habitat and farm within a more natural environment rather than the destructive "technified" monoculture of North America.
We can help stop the madness by seeking out products that are grown in harmony with nature, using traditional methods and paying farmers a fair wage for their efforts. This will help save the forests that are still standing and ultimately will encourage reforestation efforts. It will improve lives for farmers and will help make sure that the songbird migration continues for future generations.
Further Reading:
Coffee and Birds, Making the Connection
