The Science of Birds - Coffee and Bird Conservation

Episode Date: January 20, 2022

This episode—which is Number 44—is about the relationship between coffee production and bird conservation. We'll get into how do different types of coffee cultivation affect birds, and the conservation benefits of Bird Friendly Coffee.~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~Links of InterestSmithsonian Bird Friendly CoffeeBird Friendly Coffee [VIDEO]Coffee and ConservationLink to this episode on the Science of Birds websiteSupport the show

Hello and welcome. This is the Science of Birds. I am your host, Ivan Philipson. The Science of Birds podcast is a lighthearted, guided exploration of bird biology for lifelong learners. This episode, which is number 40. is about the relationship between coffee production and bird conservation. Today's episode is deliberately on the short side. I'm hoping to publish these shorter episodes in between some of the longer ones.

This way I can release episodes for you more often. Okay, if there was a Venn diagram with a circle for people who love birds and another circle for people who are cheerfully addicted to coffee, I would exist where those circles overlap. I imagine many of you would be right in there with me. But if you're not a coffee drinker, well, first off, I'm amazed. I mean, how do you even survive from one day to the next? But hey, don't worry.

As long as your caffeine-starved brain can stay awake, I think you'll find this subject interesting. The Science of Birds podcast is, in a way, powered, buy coffee. I drink coffee when I write my scripts, and I drink it when I'm recording the audio, as in right now. However, the fact that coffee farming can be a problem for birds and other wildlife has been on the periphery of my awareness for a while. I care deeply about bird conservation, so after some research and thinking, I decided I would buy only bird-friendly certified coffee beans. This was about a year ago.

I started brewing bird-friendly coffee at home, and I never looked back. Sure, it costs a little more, but I haven't gone broke. It's definitely worth it to me. So what's the deal with coffee and birds? And what is bird-friendly coffee anyway? Let's find out, shall we? Coffee is near the top of the list of liquid beverages that humans like the most. It's right up there with water and tea.

Green coffee beans are bought and sold as a commodity by roasters and investors. Other commodity crops include wheat, sugar, and soybeans. Coffee is big business. It's a powerful economic force. But business is boring. right, suits and ties and briefcases and all that nonsense. We're more interested in ecology and conservation. To understand the effects of coffee farming on birds, researchers need to understand the ecology of the birds, of course, but also the ecology of the forest and of the coffee plant

itself. There are about 120 species of coffee, but the most popular one by far is Kofa Arabica. About 60% of the coffee we drink comes from this plant. It's native to the highlands of Ethiopia and Sudan and Kenya. Having evolved in the mountains, Kaffaaaa Arabica grows best at elevations around 4,500 feet, or about 1,400 meters. It's a shrub that thrives in the understory of forests, in the shade. Coffee was domesticated over the over 1,000 years ago. Today, it's cultivated in over 70 countries, all across the tropical parts of the world. It's grown in Africa, Latin America, China, Southeast Asia, and on some islands in the Pacific and in the Caribbean. There are several ways that coffee is farmed.

Traditional rustic farms grow coffee in forest-like conditions, with lots of native trees and other native plants surrounding the coffee bushes. At the other end of the spectrum are enormous monoculture plantations where the bushes are grown in tight rows, like corn, and there are no trees in sight, no shade. These sun-baked plantations are nothing like the natural forests they replaced. As you can imagine, large monoculture farms can pump out higher quantities of coffee beans and at a faster rate. They're more efficient. That means there are economic pressures on many farmers to move away from the rustic model towards the monoculture model. The spread of large-scale

monoculture coffee cultivation around the world has had devastating effects. Deforestation is the main problem, but also soil erosion and chemical pollution from pesticides. About 75% of the world coffee production today results in forest destruction and or causes pollution. Losing forest means losing habitat for countless plants and animals, including birds. And this is why we can't have nice things. A few years ago, a bombshell study was published in the journal Science. It revealed that the number of individual birds in North America, America has dropped about 30% in the last 50 years. We've had a staggering net loss of

three billion birds. One of the groups that has suffered the most is migratory species that spend the winter in Central or South America. Many songbirds that breed in North America head to the tropical forests of Latin America in the non-breeding season. These are birds like warblers, swallows, swifts, orioles, virios, and thrushes. Examples include Scarlet Tanager, Golden-Winged Warbler, and Swainson's Thrush. Many long-distance migrants like this spend most of the year in the tropics. They come up to North America for just a few months to breed. So it's not enough for us to conserve only their breeding habitats in the north.

we also have to protect the habitats they depend on in the tropics. This is where coffee comes in. There has been a ton of research into the effects of coffee cultivation on birds, especially in Latin America. Forest destruction caused by the spread of monoculture plantations is at least part of the reason bird numbers are plummeting in the Western Hemisphere. But research has also shown us that, under the right conditions, a coffee farm can provide high-quality habitat for many bird species.

Not just for those migrant birds, but also for resident species like parrots, toucans, wood creepers, and trogons. Those are some examples of neotropical birds. Similarly, resident birds in other parts of the world can thrive on coffee farms under the right conditions. In India, for example, the Malabar Barbit and the Malabar Gray Hornbill benefit from habitat. on coffee farms. Just to be clear, that bird is the Malabar Barbit, not to be confused with Malibu Barbie. People get those mixed up all the time. In a nutshell, the more forest-like a coffee

farm is, the better habitat it provides for birds. From the perspective of birds, an ideal farm would have multiple species of mature native trees. Under this tall canopy, smaller trees and of varying height could provide additional habitat structure, an assortment of microhabitats for birds to use. In other words, all those trees and shrubs create lots of nooks and crannies and different surfaces for birds to forage on. There are more invertebrates, more seeds and fruits to eat, and more places to hide, hide from predators or maybe the police or tax collectors. What we're describing here is an agroforest. Agroforest are farms where there are trees mixed in with a cultivated crop, in this case coffee. At their best, shade-rich agroforests can support lots of birds and

lots of birds' species diversity. I recently visited a shade coffee farm in the mountains of Wahaka, Mexico. The place was thick with vegetation of all types, and it was super birdy. Among the tall trees and shrubs, I saw resident species like Northern Emerald Tuchinette, red-legged honey creeper, ivory-billed wood creeper, and slate-throated red start. And there were also plenty of migrants, birds like blue-headed Vireo, Nashville Warbler, and Bullock's Oriole. So I'd say this farm seemed pretty bird-friendly. However, it's worth pointing out that a pristine forest in those same mountains in Mexico would probably support even more bird species and a greater abundance of birds.

Untouched natural habitat is always the best, right? But if you just have to grow coffee, an organic shade coffee farm is still way better than a treeless, chemical-soaked monoculture wasteland. what's the solution here how do we stop or at least limit the damaging effects of coffee production on birds one solution is to simply end the demand for coffee let's all just stop drinking the stuff what's so hard about that who's with me that's what i thought if you're like me you're terribly addicted to coffee. But I'm sure I could quit any time. I'll start tomorrow. Maybe. I mean, let me think about it. I'll just pour another cup of coffee here and I'll think about it.

Realistically, I don't think the human race is going to come together anytime soon to agree to stop drinking coffee. The stranglehold of coffee on our economies and our brains is just too strong. So let's assume people are going to keep drinking and growing coffee. How can we do these things in the most environmentally responsible way? How can we have our coffee and our birds too? Perhaps our best hope is to increase the percentage of the world's coffee cultivation that uses bird-friendly agroforestry. But as I mentioned, there's a lot of pressure on coffee farmers to do exactly the opposite. to cut down their trees and grow coffee in sunny monocultures.

How do we fight against those economic pressures? Enter the Bird Friendly Coffee Certification Program. This was started by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center way back in the 1990s. The Smithsonian certifies a coffee producer under a softened. strict set of conditions. This program has become the gold standard when it comes to habitat conservation and coffee. A coffee farm that enters this program is inspected and monitored. If it's up to snuff, the farm wins the bird-friendly certification. The farmer can then sell their coffee beans in a higher tier market, a specialty market. The farmer gets more bang for their buck.

Or I guess you could say more bucks for their beans. Certification gives them a great reason to resist any outside pressure to switch to monoculture farming. So the Smithsonian's bird-friendly program incentivizes farmers to practice ecologically sustainable agroforestry. How does a farm meet the program's requirements. What are the certification criteria? There are several key requirements. It's important to point out that these are science-based. They're based on decades of research done by ornithologists and ecologists. First is having a tree canopy on the farm that's higher than 12 meters, or about 40 feet. Second, there have to be at least 10 woody tree and shrub species on the farm. Third, these plants must provide the farm with at least

40% shade cover in the dry season. And the last key requirement is that the height levels, or strata, of the trees and shrubs, must be in three or more layers, including the canopy and the understory. There are additional items on the list of certification criteria. Requirements for herbaceous plants, soil and leaf litter conditions, how streams and rivers are protected, and so on. Importantly, the farm must also be certified as organic by a USDA accredited agency. There are currently about 60 bird-friendly certified farms listed on the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center's website. Most are in Latin America, but there are also some in Ethiopia, India, and Thailand. I believe the total land area of all these farms adds up to about 40,000 acres,

which is 16,200 hectares. The benefits of bird-friendly coffee farming affect more than just wildlife and farmers. These farms protect the wider environments and human communities around them. For example, a bird-friendly farm protects the soil from erosion, helps keep streams and rivers clean, and offers shade for other crops and products like fruit trees and honey. Like that farm I visited in Mexico, these places can also be great destinations for bird watchers. So another benefit for bird-friendly coffee growers is the opportunity for ecotourism. Ecotourism can provide farm owners with additional income. This can give farmers even more motivation to keep the birds happy, to preserve natural habitat on

their farms. As I said, the Smithsonian Bird Friendly Certification is the gold standard when it comes to environmentally sustainable coffee. It's the best for birds, for wildlife, and for habitat. The Bird Friendly Certification, and that's Bird Friendly with a capital B and F, This certification has a unique logo. Look for that logo the next time you're buying a pound of beans. Maybe you've seen those other certification logos on the bags of coffee at your grocery store. There's certified organic, fair trade, rainforest alliance, rebel alliance, and kid-tested mother-approved.

Well, a couple of those might be bogus, I'm not sure. But any of these certifications is better than nothing. Bird-friendly, however, is hands-down the best of the best. As for the worst of the worst, that would be all of that dirt-cheap, dirt-tasting coffee that you can buy in plastic drums for like $5 a ton. We're talking Folgers, Maxwell House, stuff like that. Invariably, those beans will have been grown on a dystopian monoculture plantation. What's the opposite of bird-friendly, uh, bird unfriendly, I guess, bird hostile, bird hateful?

I implore you to do yourself and the birds you love a favor. Spend a few more bucks if you can and buy coffee that's not only better for the environment and better for the coffee farmers, but it also tastes way better. Shade-grown bird-friendly coffee is simply a higher-quality product. And if you don't drink coffee, cool. I salute you for being ahead of the game. But maybe you can encourage your coffee-addicted pals to think of the birds when they buy their beans. I bet at least a few of you listening are wondering about Starbucks.

Well, it's complicated, but my understanding is that Starbucks does a pretty good job of getting their coffee beans from environmentally sustainable sources. Starbucks isn't perfect, but it's reasonable. My hope is that so many of us crazy bird people will demand bird-friendly certified coffee that Starbucks will start selling it, and the increasing demand will lead to more and more farmers growing bird-friendly coffee. Wouldn't that be wonderful? If you'd like to learn more about bird-friendly coffee, I'll put a link to the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center in the show notes.

Also, you might want to check out the website Coffee and Conservation at Coffeehabitat.com. It's a website created by Julie Craves, an ornithologist at the University of Michigan. Coffeehabitat.com is a great source of information on this subject. Shoot me an email if you have something you'd like to share with me. My address is Ivan at Science of Birds.com. You can read the show notes for this episode, which is number 44. or on the Science of Birds website, scienceofbirds.com.

I'm Ivan Philipson, and I hope the rest of your day is just glorious. Cheers.