We have upgraded our blogging capability. This means that we had to get a new blog address. All of the posts here are on it already, and future posts will be put there. Thank you: www.bvroasteryblog.com.

I recently read a blurb about a University of Michigan study that focuses on how shade grown coffee will help alleviate stress of weather extremes potentially resulting from the changing climate. The results of the study seem rather common sensical once you understand basics of systems thinking. I am not one to question to judgment of funding such a project, because it plays an important role in academia and, as a result, in influencing policy. I will take the opportunity, however, to spout a bit about systems thinking and coffee.

First, what is shade grown coffee? Basically, a coffee plantation is considered shade grown when there exist multiple layers of canopy with the coffee trees. That is, growing coffee as part of the lower canopy, with fruit trees, leguminous trees, etc shading the coffee. There are bird niches in every canopy, greater insect life, animal activity, cycling of nutrients, richer humus, healthier soils, etc. A plantation can go through a certification process to be “Shade Grown”. Most organic coffee production incorporates shade. Shade promotes biodiversity. Biodiversity promotes health.

Within Systems Thinking, there are understood to be three basic systems, hard, soft and natural systems. The hard systems are the ones that humans create and whose outcome is predictable. Their success is determined by the interplay of the parts, and if you remove any of those parts the system will malfunction and stop. Examples include a machine – a cell phone, ipod, this computer. A soft system is also created by humans, but you cannot predict what will happen when the variables are put together or if you remove one of the parts. Examples include an organization, family, business, etc. The third, natural systems, is not made by humans and also have unpredictable relationships. A biodiverse coffee plantation, I argue, is a natural system, even though it is heavily manipulated by humans. I suppose one could argue that a monoculture of coffee may not be natural. In this case, the principles of soft and natural systems are fundamentally the same. The point is, we are dealing with many parts that work together and we cannot predict how they will relate to each other. We cannot predict what will happen when one part is removed. If you reduce the parts intentionally by changing management, such as by reducing canopy, you have less opportunity for self-correction in the plantation. The more biodiverse, the easier it is for the plantation to ‘take care of itself’ and the fewer inputs required.

Common sense reigns. If we manage for maximum production and efficiency in the short term, we would reduce the things that might interfere with harvest – such as pesky tree trunks. We would also heavily mine the soil by producing more fruit (coffee) and replacing the mined minerals with mechanically applied fertilizers. We would also allow for more sunlight to naturally combat fungus that attacks coffee fruit and leaves. By doing so, we acknowledge that we are removing more and more parts to the system – the simpler, the more efficient to work with. This is modern, conventional agriculture, and the baby of the Green Revolution. Counter to hard system functionality, the fewer the parts, the harder it is to self-control. A weather event, such as a ‘drought’ or ‘flood’ comes in and the system has a hard time coping and takes much longer to react and recover, losing productivity and income in the meantime.

Contrarily, a biodiverse plantation can withstand weather events because the abundant variables allow for flexibility in how a plantation can self-regulate. Certainly, human input is essential to maintain a productive coffee plantation that continually removes minerals and carbon in the form of a coffee cherry. Humans also have to discourage an unwanted forest from growing, which undoubtedly would without proper care.

Presumably, researchers at U of M studied the effects of shade grown coffee on the soil, temperature, moisture content, and general micro-climate of a coffee plantation along with the associated plant health. These results would have been compared to plantations that were not shade grown. As a conclusion of the study, we now know emphatically that a canopy is good and would position a coffee farmer better to deal with climate change than if he or she had a monoculture plantation. Now, we as an industry have the science to back up the logic.

I learned more about a mandatory carbon offset that I had to pay to go to a Specialty Coffee Conference. Last May was the first conference I had attended, and was coincidentally the first SCAA Conference to require a carbon offset. I blogged in May about going to the event and need to follow up a little with comments on the carbon offset.  I am now part of the SCAA Sustainability Committee, the very folk who encouraged the monetary contribution.

So, here is the skinny on the offset: An organization, Trees for the Future, plants trees at about 10 for $1 in various locations around the world. A consulting group had determined that $7 would buy enough trees to offset the average travel distance for people to get to the conference site. So, give $7 to the conference and they in turn donate the money to plant 70 trees. Subsequently, the carbon burnt through the combustion of jet fuel will become absorbed into leaves and woody matter of the trees over the life of those trees. There was some unknown as to whether any of the foam core signage, preparatory travel, climate control at the conference center, etc was also included in these 70 trees.

Many people at last year’s conference were confused about the $7 mandatory offset, many others accepted it without a blink. The link with Trees for the Future was not widely publisized, nor the quantity of carbon that each person generated in traveling to the conference. With some different communication efforts, complaints may be alleviated.

Still, there is question in the scientific community as to the carbon-offsetting impact that planting trees has, namely whether it truly sequesters carbon back into the soil by converting the carbon into the appropriate ion. We at the Roastery are looking at terrestrial carbon sequestration and partnering with Holistic Management International for us to become “carbon neutral”. There is still some science to be uncovered with the use of herding animals to sequester carbon into the soil, and how much is sequestered at what rate. However, the decision-making framework, which we incorporate into our business, and the worldwide results of emulating herding behavior through sound management is more appealing to us as a business than other offset mechanisms.

One thing was clear in my first meeting with this volunteer group of coffee industry professionals on the Sustainability Committee – they are passionate about steering the coffee industry to significantly contributing to the United Nations Millenium Development Goals. I think we will take some great strides pushing this bohemouth along, and am encouraged with the Committee’s fervency. At least for now, I am happy to give $7 for planting trees wherever that may be.

I send a thanks out to Green Eco Services for their listing of Bongo Billy’s Coffees in their post about Fair Trade coffee as a green coffee suppliers. We are working hard to provide the most socially and environmentally responsible coffees and to people. We were just certified as a Green Business and have a growing list of projects to undertake locally to support our community, some of which are in our 2008 list. So, thanks for the recognition.

Next week I begin in earnest my tenure on the Specialty Coffee Association of America Sustainability Committee with a trip to a quarterly meeting in Atlanta. The meeting is a joint committee meeting, sort of a ‘mini SCAA conference’, as one person called it on a conference call the other day. I am interested to see how ’sustainable’ the meeting is, especially as compared to the MN SCAA gathering last May. It was during that meeting that I obligatorily had to pay $7 to offset my carbon footprint, when the pomp and circumstance, signage, etc clearly paled the $7. Without really understanding the inner workings of the conference and expressing a little too much hubris, I found this was a curious notion to offset the barrage of signage and technological necessities of the conference. I look forward to learning more and to playing a part on the organizing side of things.

The Sustainability Committee has tasked itself to meet the United Nations Millenium Development Goals (MDG). This is a wonderful aim. People have already been working on these goals and perhaps there are ways to help effect policy to encourage more progress. This fits in with the Roastery’s work with BBI International and becoming a certified Green Business. We still would like to work on a carbon footprint assessment and subsequent ways to reduce that footprint.