Increased Income with Coffee and Bananas
Sustainable agriculture is good for the planet and shade grown coffee is ideal. In Uganda in East Africa coffee farmers had been encouraged to cut down the highland forests to plant coffee. A new approach confirms the value of growing coffee in at least partial shade and is more profitable as well. All Africa reports about climate smart coffee and bananas and the increase coffee farmers’ incomes.
Ugandan farmers are increasingly inter-planting coffee, the country’s primary export, and banana, a staple food, as a way of coping with the effects of climate change.
Studies by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and partner organizations show that a Ugandan farmer gets 50 per cent more income from inter cropping coffee and banana than from growing either crop alone.
Conducted in over 30 districts of Uganda, the study showed that coffee yield remained the same when intercropped with bananas and the farmers gained additional income from the banana.
This approach increases coffee farmers’ incomes and moves away from industrial scale growing of coffee back toward a shade grown coffee approach.
With shade grown organic coffee the consumer gets healthy organic coffee and the grower preserves the natural environment. 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. Considering that it can take a decade for coffee plants to mature an infection or infestation that destroys plants can be devastating. Thus the coffee planter who ceases to produce shade grown organic coffee can find himself trapped in a never ending cycle of herbicide, pesticide, and synthetic fertilizer use. The consumers of this coffee pay the price.
At least growing coffee with bananas is an economically viable step back toward traditional shade grown coffee.
The Home of Robusta
Uganda is where Robusta coffee beans got their start according to Coffee Review.
Uganda, situated in the Great Lakes region of central Africa at the headwaters of the Nile, is the original home of coffea canephora, or robusta. The main part of Uganda coffee production continues to be dry-processed robusta used in instant coffees and as cheap fillers in blends. Uganda also produces excellent wet-processed arabicas, however, virtually all grown by villagers on small plots
Coffee marketed as Wugar is grown on mountains bordering Zaire along Uganda’s western border. More admired is Bugisu or Bugishu, from the western slopes of Mt. Elgon on the Kenya border. Bugisu is another typically winy, fruit-toned African coffee, usually a rougher version of Kenya.
Coffee farmers in Uganda are seeing increased income with coffee and bananas planted side by side.
How Long Will Cheap Coffee Last?
Arabica coffee futures fell by 24% in 2016 but how long will cheap coffee last? Agrimoney.com speculates on Arabica coffee futures and asks if the rout in prices will end in 2016.
Coffee futures proved among the worst ag performers of 2015 – in particular New York-traded arabica ones which dropped by 24%, compared with the 21% decline in their London-listed robusta peer.
The drop to a large part reflected the decline in currencies in major producers Brazil and Colombia, cutting the value in dollar terms of a commodity in which they represent a large chunk of world supplies.
However, better weather in Brazil’s main Arabica-growing state, after a dryness-plagued 2014, and the continued recovery in Colombian output after a replanting program early in the decade also played a role.
As did continued strong coffee exports from Brazil, which questioned lowball ideas for the country’s inventories.
The low value of the Brazilian real made it more profitable locally for Brazilian coffee farmers to sell their coffee supplies as coffee is denominated in US dollars. The glut of more coffee coming on line from the two largest producers of Arabica coffee drove prices down in dollars but because of the weakness of the real and the Colombian peso coffee farmers were still making a nice profit in their local currencies. How long will cheap coffee last? It is a matter of supply and demand. And the relative value of the real and Colombian peso versus the US dollar.
Coffee in Colombia
Increasing Demand and Fragile Supply Side
Seeking Alpha speculates that increasing demand and a fragile supply side could strengthen the coffee market.
According to the International Coffee Organization, demand for coffee is expected to rise ~25% in the next five years (from 2015). Demand is strong in developed countries such as Norway, Canada, the United States, and Switzerland. But the biggest demand driver going forward is from emerging markets such as Algeria, Australia, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and the Ukraine. On a numerical basis, coffee demand has potential to jump to 175.8mm bags by 2020 from 141.6mm bags in 2014. (Note: A bag weighs in at 132 pounds)
This is another El Niño year and the last time this weather pattern visited South America it substantially reduced coffee production in Brazil and Colombia. That has not yet happened this year but a combination of lower production and higher demand would be a recipe for higher prices in 2016.
Lower Brazilian Coffee Production
The USDA says that estimates of Brazilian coffee production have been revised downward which would reduce supply but selling of stocks from previous years may balance out the effect on prices.
Brazil’s coffee production for MY 2015/16 was revised down to 49.4 million 60-kg bags, a nine percent drop relative to a revised number for the previous season, due to below average yields and smaller size of the beans in some growing areas. Coffee exports in MY 2015/16 reached historic levels at 36.57 million bags, indicating that the 2014 harvest was not severely affected by the drought in Minas Gerais and São Paulo. Carry-over stocks from crops prior to 2014 also supported the steady flow of exports. Carry-over stocks for MY 2015/16 are projected down at 5.2 million bags.
In short it is not clear how long cheap coffee will last although there is certainly no immediate price hike on the horizon.
Give Organic Coffee for Christmas
The holidays are upon us. What do you get for that hard-to-buy-for father-in-law? What if you give organic coffee for Christmas? Healthy organic coffee is good for you and something that helps you wake up on New Year’s Day after too much partying to let the New Year in. If you decide to give organic coffee for Christmas what are your best choices? If you think about this earlier next year contact us at Buy Organic Coffee and ask us to send you Panama Mountain grown organic coffee or one of the Colombian organic coffee brands. But, if you need to run out to get some organic coffee at the last minute here are three certifications to look for on the bag.
USDA Certified
USDA organic coffee is the gold standard for organic coffees.
According to the USDA, the following applies to USDA organic coffee as well as to all organic food production. “… Organic food is produced by farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations. Organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation. Before a product can be labeled ‘organic,’ a Government-approved certifier inspects the farm where the food is grown to make sure the farmer is following all the rules necessary to meet USDA organic standards. Companies that handle or process organic food before it gets to your local supermarket or restaurant must be certified, too.”
Rainforest Alliance Certified
Rainforest Alliance certified coffee is comparable to USDA certified and more.
An alternative to organic coffee certification is for a grower to be Rainforest Alliance certified. The Rainforest Alliance is a non-governmental organization that works to conserve biodiversity. It does so for agricultural products by influencing consumers to buy what is good for the environment and good for small farmers. Rainforest Alliance certified means that the coffee that you buy was produced using good land use practices. Rainforest Alliance certified coffee is part of a broader sustainable agriculture program of tropical crops, including coffee, bananas, cocoa, oranges, cut flowers, ferns, and tea. Certified coffee farms meet a strict set of environmental standards that include preservation of the ecosystem and reduction in use of synthetic chemicals of all sorts. In addition, strict health and safety requirements are part of getting Rainforest Alliance certified.
UTZ Certified
UTZ certified coffee is like Rainforest Alliance in that UTZ not only certifies organic farming practices but also helps growers find a market for their product.
UTZ Certified stands for sustainable farming and better opportunities for farmers, their families and our planet. The UTZ program enables farmers to learn better farming methods, improve working conditions and take better care of their children and the environment. Through the UTZ-program farmers grow better crops, generate more income and create better opportunities while safeguarding the environment and securing the earth’s natural resources.
If you want to give organic coffee for Christmas next year, contact us a month in advance for direct shipment. If you are under the gun right now for a gift look for the certifications we suggest.
You Are Less Likely to Die If You Drink Coffee
And here is one more study that shows that you are less likely to die if you drink coffee. Obviously, we all die eventually. But why hurry the process? There have been quite a few research studies showing that drinking coffee reduces the risk of diseases like type II diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and many more. And studies from the Harvard School of Public health have shown that over a given period of time you are less likely to die if you drink coffee. (40 Years of Observations on the Effects of Coffee) One more bit of proof was recently published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. The article deals with the association of coffee consumption and mortality in general and from specific causes. In this case the authors are able to say that the risk of death from specific diseases is reduced by coffee consumption. The link is to the abstract.
Concerns about high caffeine intake and coffee as a vehicle for added fat and sugar have raised questions about the net impact of coffee on health. Although inverse associations have been observed for overall mortality, data for cause-specific mortality are sparse.
Enrollees were free of cancer and had no history of cardiovascular disease. 90,317 enrolled and 8,718 occurred during the ten years that individuals were in the study. Results were statistically adjusted for smoking.
Coffee drinkers, as compared with nondrinkers, had lower hazard ratios for overall mortality (<1 cup/day: hazard ratio (HR) = 0.99 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.92, 1.07); 1 cup/day: HR = 0.94 (95% CI: 0.87, 1.02); 2–3 cups/day: HR = 0.82 (95% CI: 0.77, 0.88); 4–5 cups/day: HR = 0.79 (95% CI: 0.72, 0.86); ≥6 cups/day: HR = 0.84 (95% CI: 0.75, 0.95)). Similar findings were observed for decaffeinated coffee and coffee additives. Inverse associations were observed for deaths from heart disease, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, pneumonia and influenza, and intentional self-harm, but not cancer. Coffee may reduce mortality risk by favorably affecting inflammation, lung function, insulin sensitivity, and depression.
The hazard ratio in this instance is the risk of dying during the ten years you were in the study. A cup of coffee a day reduced your risk by about one percent while two to three cups a day reduced your risk by five percent. People who drank four to five cups a day has a fourteen percent low risk of dying during the course of the study and if you drank six cups or more your risk was reduced by sixteen percent.
Decaf and regular coffee had similar effects. Although the researchers did not find a lowering of risk of death from cancer from drinking coffee the incidence of dying from the following diseases was reduced.
- Heart disease
- Chronic respiratory diseases
- Diabetes
- Pneumonia and influenza
- Intentional self-harm (suicide)
The authors believe that coffee reduces mortality by its effects on reducing inflammation, helping lung function, improving insulin sensitivity and alleviating depression. Antioxidants in coffee have been linked to several of the benefits of coffee and would seem to fit the picture of inflammation reduction and improved insulin sensitivity as reasons for decreased mortality in coffee drinkers.
Barrel Aged Coffee
Think of liqueur coffee with the aroma but without the liqueur and you will get barrel aged coffee. The Washington Post published an interesting article about roasted coffee that is stored in a barrel previously used for liquor and comes out with some of the aroma and taste of the previous occupant of the barrel. Here is a little of what they have to say about barrel aged coffee.
The aroma alarmed me. It filled my car with the sweet, woody burn of whiskey, as if Hank Williams were riding shotgun with an open bottle in his hand. But I had nothing stronger in my to-go cup than coffee freshly made that morning at Qualia, the Petworth micro-roaster and java-slinger. Really, I swear. I don’t start with the hard stuff until, you know, noon. This was a cup prepared from Qualia’s Baby Rye Rye, a reserved line of Colombian beans that are aged for about two weeks in a charred oak rye-whiskey barrel, then roasted and rested.
The short version of the article is that roasted coffee beans stored for a couple of weeks in a barrel previous used for whisky or wine comes out with some of that aroma and taste in addition to the natural taste and aroma of the coffee. Roasters have tried this with green coffee beans which are very absorbent. Unfortunately, green beans soak up too much of the residual alcohol which imparts an ashy flavor when roasted. Barrel aged coffee takes time to prepare and there is never very much and the cost reflects this fact.
Coffee with Something from the Barrel Added
Some months back we wrote a series of articles about coffee with a little alcohol added. The best known for many people is Irish coffee.
Start your organic Irish coffee with Panama Mountain Grown organic coffee or coffee from Colombia. You can order organic whiskey from http://www.graigfarm.co.uk/ if they do not have any at your local liquor store. Use organic brown sugar and organic whipping cream. Because of all the cooler ingredients you will be adding make sure that you start with hot coffee poured into a pre-heated glass. For each cup of organic Irish coffee use the following:
- Coffee mug (A glass mug is traditional.)
- Tablespoon
- 4 ounces of hot coffee freshly ground and brewed organic coffee
- 1 ounce of organic, preferably Irish, whiskey
- 2 teaspoonful of brown sugar
- 1 ounce of organic double cream whipped just lightly
The Steps
- Have everything ready.
- Warm your coffee mug.
- Put the brown sugar into the glass and then add the hot organic coffee.
- Stir until the sugar dissolves.
- Add the whiskey and stir again.
- Add the cream by pouring gently over the back side of the tablespoon so that the whipped cream sits on top of the coffee.
- A little cinnamon and or nutmeg sprinkled on top of the whipped cream are an American addition to this treat and are optional.
Irish Coffee
Alternatives to barrel aged coffee and Irish coffee include the following.
Enjoy your coffee with any of the liqueur coffees, alcohol added and let someone else drive. Or go with barrel aged coffee and a hint of the strong stuff but no significant amount of alcohol so that you can be still be the designated driver.
Keurig Sells Out
Keurig sells out to European JAB Holding Company and the dominant player in the USA single serve market becomes a trophy for a family owned company aiming to dominate the global coffee industry. The New York Times reports that Keurig is becoming part of the coffee empire of a European investor group.
A billionaire European family is on a caffeine-fueled binge to roll up the global coffee industry, with a huge bet announced Monday: a $13.9 billion acquisition of Keurig Green Mountain.
The all-cash deal, offering an eye-popping premium of 78 percent, took analysts and investors by surprise. Keurig has lately had its share of challenges, facing a saturated market for its single-serving coffee brewers, sluggish sales of pods and a stalled new product.
But the JAB Holding Company – the investment arm of the Reimann family, heirs to the German consumer goods company, Joh. A. Benckiser GmbH – is in year three of its quest to dominate the global coffee industry. Keurig, which commands a large majority of the single-serve market in the United States, was a natural next step for the Reimanns.
The Reimann family has a controlling stake in the Jacobs Douwe Egberts coffee conglomerate whose brands include Bravo and Bach Espresso. It also has controlling interest in Peet’s Coffee & Tea which in turn acquired Stumptown Coffee Roasters plus Espresso House and Baresso Coffee A/S. Having Keurig in the group provides a platform for selling their various coffees via the single serve route. The article notes that Keurig needed Starbucks too much to drop their brand but that may not be the case with a larger company with worldwide reach.
A Reprieve for the K-Cup
We wrote recently about the death of the k-cup.
Are we going to see the death of the k cup? Keurig, the maker of single serve coffee saw its stock drop 30% after reporting diminishing sales. It would seem that the k cup fad is wearing thin and Keurig has hurt itself by trying to corner the market with a machine upgrade that excludes other brands. That, in the end, is probably the reason for the death of the k cup.
With its stock price down 30% or more Keurig has been in trouble. JAB Holding Company can use the single serve approach to improve sales of its various brands and Keurig can use other sources of coffee that reduce it dependence on the likes of Starbucks.
Global Reach
As Keurig sells out JAB has their sights on creating a coffee empire that spans the globe according to Bloomberg Business.
JAB Holding Co. wants to rule the coffee world. The closely held investment firm that manages the fortune of Austria’s billionaire Reimann family took another step toward that goal Monday by acquiring Keurig Green Mountain Inc. for almost $14 billion in the industry’s biggest-ever deal.
JAB has spent more than $30 billion in the past four years acquiring coffee companies in the U.S. and Europe to challenge global leader Nestle SA. JAB has bought assets including D.E Master Blenders 1753 NV, Mondelez International Inc.’s coffee unit and high-end chain Peet’s Coffee & Tea.
“This is part of a much, much bigger strategy. JAB wants to be the Budweiser of the coffee space,” Pablo Zuanic, a Susquehanna Financial Group analyst, said, referring to Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, the world’s biggest brewer. “Just as you’ve seen Bud consolidate beer, they want to consolidate coffee.”
Our concern is just where the small grower of healthy organic coffee fits in this picture. More later.
Your Moldy Coffee Maker
This unappetizing title has to do with cleaning your moldy coffee maker and removing the bacteria as well! Bacteria and mold are everywhere in the environment and when they land on moist surfaces they make themselves at home and start to reproduce. One of the unnoticed places in your home where this will happen is your coffee maker. Several publications have written about this issue. We will start with Huffington Post saying that your Keurig machine might be covered with bacteria and mold.
Your Keurig coffee machine may be a bacteria breeding ground, according to a recent test performed by CBS stations in Pittsburgh, Dallas, and Chicago. The news outlets swabbed the various parts of 29 Keurig coffee makers, sending samples to a lab to be analyzed. One swab from a machine in Pittsburgh contained 4.6 million colonies of bacteria and mold, and E.coli showed up on a machine in Dallas.
More than half of the machines came back with bacteria counts in the millions, CBS Pittsburgh reports.
It’s not just Keurig and other single-serve machines that could be growing swarms of germs — traditional coffee makers will also house bacteria, yeast and mold if not sanitized correctly, because the hot water used in the machine isn’t enough to decontaminate the pot.
Periodically scrub out your coffee pot and a couple of times a year boil vinegar in it to descale the mineral buildup. Clean and set out to dry interior parts and you will help reduce the rate of bacteria and mold buildup.
Bacteria in Your Coffee Maker
The Dallas TV station mentioned previously mentions specific bacteria in various coffee makers.
Dallas mom, Stephanie Brink was stunned to hear that her machine had pseudomonas aeruginosa- a bacteria that grows in standing water and pipes.
Heather Dunston, a mother of three was in for an even bigger surprise. The I-Team found enterobacter on her machine. That’s a coliform – a bacteria from your colon.
And, our very own I-Team Senior Investigative Reporter Ginger Allen was in for a big surprise as well. Dunston was not the only one with a coliform on her coffee machine. Klebsiella, another coliform, was found on Allen’s machine.
These germs are all potentially bad actors and can show up along with the mold in your molding coffee maker. The precautions for bacteria are the same as for mold, routine cleaning and drying. The specific steps listed by the Dallas station are these.
- Clean your machine regularly – run vinegar through it often.
- Use filtered water rather than tap.
- Change the water after each use.
- Leave the lid off to allow the machine to air out.
- Wipe it down like you do your other appliances.
Jefferson said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It appears to be the same price we need to pay to avoid a bacteria infested and moldy coffee maker.
Complicated versus Simple
The more moist nooks and crannies your coffee maker has, the more mold and bacteria you will likely have to deal with. Quartz published an article referring to your coffee maker as a bacterial breeding ground and published a photo of a machine that has a lot of nooks and crannies to clean. An alternative is to boil your coffee as when making Turkish coffee or coffee for the family back on the farm. Or you can use a French press. The glass container and all of the parts can be cleaned, rinsed and dried without having any hidden areas for bacteria and mold to grow.
Why Coffee Protects Against Type II Diabetes
Researchers have known for years that drinking coffee reduces the risk of type II diabetes as we noted in our article, More Organic Coffee Can Lead to Less Diabetes. Now researchers have identified a specific bioactive substance in coffee that stimulates insulin secretion and sugar uptake by muscle cells. The report is in the Journal of Natural Products.
Cafestol, a Bioactive Substance in Coffee, Stimulates Insulin Secretion and Increases Glucose Uptake in Muscle Cells: Studies in Vitro
Diet and exercise intervention can delay or prevent development of type-2-diabetes (T2D), and high habitual coffee consumption is associated with reduced risk of developing T2D. This study aimed to test whether selected bioactive substances in coffee acutely and/or chronically increase insulin secretion from β-cells and improve insulin sensitivity in skeletal muscle cells. Insulin secretion from INS-1E rat insulinoma cells was measured after acute (1-h) and long-term (72-h) incubation with bioactive substances from coffee.
Coffee, Coffea arabica Benth. (Rubiaceae) and Coffea canephora Benth. (Rubiaceae), contains a diversity of bioactive components that varies with coffee species and the roasting and brewing methods.(8-10) The large number of substances includes methylxanthines (especially caffeine), diterpenes (like cafestol and kahweol), the lignan secoisolaricresenol, phenolic acids (e.g., caffeic-, ferulic-, chlorogenic- and quinic acid), trigonelline, minerals, and degradation products.
The specific substance in coffee that stimulates insulin secretion and subsequent uptake of sugar by muscle cells is cafestol. A related compound, caffeic acid has similar effects.
How Much Cafestol Is in Your Coffee?
Since cafestol can be instrumental in fighting type II diabetes how much of the stuff is in your coffee? According to the researchers roasted Arabica coffee beans contain 0.5% caffeic acid while a cup of coffee contains 35 to 175 mg of caffeic acid. Boiled coffee, Turkish coffee and French press coffee contain 6 to 12 mg of cafestol while filtered coffee contains only 0.2 to 0.6 mg of cafestol. It turns out that the paper filter traps and retains the majority of the cafestol when brewing coffee. In addition lighter roasts have more cafestol then darker roasts according to Science Direct.
The extraction yield of cafestol from roast and ground (R&G) coffee beans was evaluated using brews prepared by four brewing mechanisms (boiled, Turkish, French Press and Mocha Pot). The cafestol content of the R&G coffee and the resulting brews was measured and extraction yield calculated. The R&G coffee had an average cafestol content of 603 mg/100 g R&G coffee with a slight reduction at higher roast intensities. In the brews, preparation method had an impact on cafestol concentration with French, Turkish and boiled preparation methods producing the highest cafestol concentrations. The extraction yield of cafestol was shown to be dependent on the brew mechanism and roasting time, with the lightest roast coffee prepared by French press or boiled preparations having the highest cafestol extraction yield (6.5% and 5.84%) and dark roast Mocha and Turkish preparations had the lowest extraction yields of 2.42% and 2.88% respectively.
So, if you want to avoid getting type II diabetes drink coffee and if you really want to avoid type II diabetes consider the French press method or even the old farm kitchen method of boiling the grounds on the stove and letting them settle before serving.
Forty Years of Observations on the Effects of Coffee
We live in a world with an increasingly short news cycle. All too often the news contains half-baked opinions that are presented as fact. In regard to coffee consumption it is nice to see that someone has taken the long view (forty years). Business Insider just published an interview with Harvard University researcher, Dr. Frank Hu. The good doctor who has personally studied coffee for twenty years just published, along with associates, an article showing that people who drink coffee have a lower mortality than folks who do not drink coffee. And he provides some insights in the interview.
Dr. Frank Hu just finished a 40-year study on the effects of coffee on the human body. People who drink more coffee it turns out, live longer.
Specifically, Hu’s study found that coffee-drinkers have lower risks of cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, as well as suicide.
The research began in 1976, and involved nearly 210,000 people. With all the follow-ups over the years, the study includes 4.7 million person-years of data. The scale meant it took several generations of scientists to complete the study. Hu, a researcher and professor at Harvard Medical School, himself joined in 1996. The enormous amount of data was useful, because coffee is an extraordinarily complicated drink.
“Coffee is certainly a very complex beverage,” Hu told INSIDER. Besides caffeine, it contains hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bioactive compounds. So it’s very difficult, perhaps impossible, to tease out the effects of individual compounds or chemicals.”
This is an ongoing observational study about which we wrote recently in our article, Drink Coffee, Live Longer. The basis of this ongoing work is yearly interviews with tens of thousands of people and the information obtained has to do with a broad range of health issues and habits besides just coffee.
Long Term Health Studies
The studies from which Dr. Hu and colleagues got their data include the Nurses’ Health Study which began in 1976, Nurses’ Health Study II started in 1989 and Health Professionals Follow Study started in 1986. The sum total of 4,690,072 person-years of data has been obtained. (This the sum of people in the study times the years each has participated for all entrants.) The Nurses’ Health Professional Follow-up tracks incidence of disease, various habits over a lifetime and date and cause of death.
The Nurses’ Health Studies are among the largest and longest running investigations of factors that influence women’s health. Started in 1976 and expanded in 1989, the information provided by the 238,000 dedicated nurse-participants has led to many new insights on health and disease. While the prevention of cancer is still a primary focus, the study has also produced landmark data on cardiovascular disease, diabetes and many other conditions. Most importantly, these studies have shown that diet, physical activity and other lifestyle factors can powerfully promote better health.
The fact of the matter is that much of medical data is anecdotal, based in a handful of cases treated by a handful of physicians. Prior to this study there was little or no hard data regarding life habits such as exercise, smoking, drinking coffee, work hours, etc. for sufficiently large populations to provide useful information. With forty years of data most recently summed up by Dr. Hu and others we can see strong associations between life habits such as exercise, smoking and drinking coffee. Where does coffee fit in all of this?
Drink Coffee and Live Longer
As the researcher, Dr. Hu, is quoted as saying, coffee is a very complicated drink. But the data shows that over the years drinking coffee reduces the risk, year by year, of dying from heart disease, degenerative neurologic diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s and suicide. The sad fact of the matter is that if you smoke you increase all of these risks. Researchers believe that coffee consumption perhaps helps smokers but the negative effect of smoking outweighs the positive effect of coffee. The take home point of all of this is that exercise in good for you, smoking is bad and you will live longer if you routinely drink coffee.
Why Shade Grown Coffee?
Years ago we published an article about shade grown organic coffee. As more and more coffee varieties are developed for full sun there are risks. Why shade grown coffee?
Shade grown organic coffee has historically been grown in a mixed species forest that includes fruit and hardwood trees as well as other bushes and plants. Researchers have found up to forty different species of trees on traditional, organic coffee plantations. This mixture of trees helps maintain soil quality and provides habitat for numerous smaller plants as well as animals and birds. A mature plantation producing shade grown organic coffee is a mature ecosystem that is virtually self-sustaining. It does not require insecticides as birds and other animals living in the coffee forest consume the pests. It does not require large amount of synthetic fertilizers as the natural products of plant decomposition slowly leach into the soil to fertilize new plants and do not poison downstream water or the water table.
Small traditional farms produce shade grown organic coffee by planting coffee plants in existing forest. Likewise small growers will selectively clear forest in order to retain the canopy while providing room for coffee.
Shade grown coffee protects the environment. Shade grown coffee is bird friendly. Organic shade grown coffee is good for small coffee farmers.
Sustainable Coffee Growing
Coffee grows naturally under a forest canopy. Growing coffee in this setting avoid the use of excessive amount of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. This is sustainable coffee growing in the true sense, what is more recently referred to as regenerative agriculture.
Alternet writes about how we should stop using the term sustainable and instead use regenerative or degenerative. They suggest a regeneration revolution.
Their argument is that at best sustainable practices maintain the status quo and at worst the term is used as an outright lie. Their proposal is that people should be able to choose food that is produced using organic regenerative practices based on sound ecological principles that rejuvenate the soil, grasslands and forests; replenish water; promote food sovereignty; and restore public health and prosperity – all while cooling the planet by drawing down billions of tons of excess carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in the soil where it belongs.
This is why shade grown coffee.
Coffee for the Birds
The other reason why shade grown coffee is good thing is that preserving forest preserves habitat for birds as we note in our article, Coffee for the Birds.
The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has a Bird Friendly Coffee page on their web site. They have developed the only 100% organic and shade-grown coffee certification available: Bird Friendly.
The point is that USDA certified and other certifications do not guarantee that the forest habitat was preserved while the Bird Friend Coffee certification does. An alternative certification is with the Rainforest Alliance.
The Rainforest Alliance works with coffee farmers to improve their livelihoods and the health and well-being of their communities. Coffee farms or groups of smallholder farmers that earn the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal are audited annually against a rigorous standard with detailed environmental, social and economic criteria. These criteria are designed to protect biodiversity, deliver financial benefits to farmers, and foster a culture of respect for workers and local communities. Rainforest Alliance certification also promotes decent living and working conditions for workers, gender equity and access to education for children in farm communities.
That’s why shade grown coffee is a good thing.