Coffee used to grow in the wild. It was discovered in East Africa a thousand years ago. From its discovery in Ethiopia coffee was cultivated and domesticated as it spread across the world. The coffee that people discovered a thousand years ago was healthy organic coffee.
Healthy organic coffee has been around for a long, long time. Unfortunately in the modern era the use of pesticides and herbicides has entered the picture in growing many crops, including otherwise healthy organic coffee. Although non-organic contaminants do not necessarily reduce the beneficial health effects of a healthy cup of organic coffee the non-organic contaminants cause problems of their own.
What makes organic coffee organic is the fact that it is grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or fungicides. Originally organic coffee was also shade grown coffee. Coffee grows naturally under a forest canopy.
Natural coffee strains grow best in partial or total shade. In fact, many plants dry out and die if planted in full sun. Thus coffee has traditionally been grown under a canopy of trees. This method of planting on hillsides helps prevent erosion as is still seen in regions of Colombia, Panama, and other parts of the world where coffee is grown on steep slopes. However, new sun tolerant coffee strains were introduced over the last two generations. These plants thrive in full sunlight and are capable of producing up to three times as many coffee beans as traditional coffee plants in a shaded environment. Unfortunately, in order to boost production rates growers use synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides to protect the monoculture of coffee that they plant. By taking coffee out of its more normal habitat growers subject it to the same risks as other field crops and orchards in which individual infective pests can enter and destroy a crop.
How Do You Know It Is Organic?
Today in order to know if coffee is organic you look for evidence of organic coffee certification on the package.
Organic coffee differs from regular coffee in several aspects. The soil in which organic coffee is grown must have been verified as free from prohibited substances for at least three years. In addition there must be distinct boundaries between land on which organic coffee is grown and land where pesticides, herbicides, and prohibited chemical fertilizers are used. This guarantees that drift of substances sprayed or otherwise applied on adjacent land will not contaminate the organic plot of land. Organic coffee certification includes the adherence to a specific and verifiable plan for all practices and procedures from planting to crop maintenance, to harvest, de-husking, bagging, transport, roasting, packaging, and final transport.
Certifications to look for start with USDA which is the US Department of Agriculture. Others include UTZ, Rainforest Alliance and the Smithsonian´s Bird Friendly Coffee.
An issue for organic coffee growers is that the sustainable agriculture that is needed to produce organic coffee is more time consuming and can be more costly than the assembly line approach used for regular coffee. Coffee growers need to be able to price their product accordingly. Institutions like UTZ and the Rain Forest Alliance help in this regard by finding buyers for organic coffee.