Nonprofit group maps coffee-driven deforestation in Brazil : NPR

Coffee plants are seen at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation’s experimental farm in Brazil in 2022. Coffee production in Brazil leads to deforestation, according to a nonprofit group.

Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images

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Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images

While the global thirst for coffee shows no signs of abating, practices widely used to increase production of the crop have become counterproductive, according to a nonprofit watchdog group.

In Brazil, the world’s largest coffee producer, growing coffee leads to deforestation, which makes growing coffee more difficult.

More than 1,200 square kilometers of forest were cleared for coffee growing in Brazil’s coffee-growing areas between 2001 and 2023, according to a new report from the group Coffee Watch. The group used satellite imagery, government land use data and a forest loss alert system in its analysis.

Overall, in areas with a high concentration of coffee farming operations, a total of more than 42,000 square miles of forest have now disappeared, the report said. This includes forest loss caused directly by coffee farming – where land has been cleared for cultivation – as well as indirectly, through nearby road and infrastructure projects, for example.

“Coffee has essentially dug a hole the size of Honduras in Brazil’s forests,” says Etelle Higonnet, founder and director of Coffee Watch, noting that the Central American country has an area similar to that which was lost.

Let’s be clear, coffee is not the main cause of deforestation in Brazil. Cattle farming is responsible for a much larger share, Higonnet notes, but she says coffee’s role in deforestation hasn’t been talked about enough.

Scientists have shown how deforestation leads to reduced precipitation in tropical rainforests. This is because trees absorb and release moisture, which rises to create clouds and more rain. Cutting down trees disrupts the cycle, reducing rainfall and leading to drought.

Of course, drought makes growing coffee more difficult.

“When you kill the forest, you also kill the rains, which is exactly what your crops need to thrive in the long term,” says Higonnet. “Even for people who don’t care much about climate change and mass extinctions, if they drink coffee and worry about having one long term, it should be very scary to them.”

Most years of the past decade have seen rainfall deficits in Brazil’s main coffee-producing regions, the report said.

Farmers are expanding to meet the world’s “insatiable demand for coffee,” says Aaron Davis, senior research manager for crops and global change at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England, who has long focused on coffee. “And to produce this coffee, you need land. It’s as simple as that.”

Davis says the report is “timely and useful.” He did not participate in the study.

“This will help provide metrics on deforestation and start the debate on the influence of coffee production on forest loss,” he said.

Coffee Watch’s Higonnet credits Brazil’s current administration, under left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for progress in combating deforestation. Brazil’s Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, which works to prevent deforestation, did not respond to NPR’s request for comment.

Higonnet hopes the report will encourage coffee companies to refuse to buy coffee grown on deforested land. The National Coffee Association, a trade association for the U.S. coffee industry, did not respond to a request for comment on the report.

There are more environmentally friendly methods of growing coffee, such as using shade trees to protect certain plants from the sun and diversifying crops. But these methods generally don’t produce as much coffee as industrialized production. Higonnet says the coffee growing areas they studied in Brazil generally do not use sustainable agroforestry practices. Davis adds that more needs to be done to reward farmers who are more sustainable.

He says the responsibility for encouraging more sustainable coffee production lies with consumers.

For coffee drinkers, Davis says, “I think we need to realize and change our minds about the implications of purchasing products like coffee. »