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Making the best. Pedro Gonzalez, 40, picks ripe coffee on a
smallcoffee farm associated with the Las Brumas Cooperative
inNicaragua. The cooperative is part of the larger Organization
ofNorthern Coffee Cooperatives, which helps members markettheir
coffee and negotiates better prices with wholesalers.Farmers with
the Los Brumas Cooperative have used Fair Tradepremiums to build a
school and improve roads in their town.
Coffee bean prices plummeted during the
coffee crisis of the late 1990s, the result
of a glut in coffee production. Prices
sank from around US$1.50 per pound in 1997 to
about a third that amount in 2001, according to
the International Coffee Organization, the primary
intergovernmental organization for coffee produc-
tion. For millions of people dependent on coffee
farming, the crisis brought social and economic
devastation and forced many farmers to choose
between immediate household needs and environ-
mental destruction.
That crisis raised alarms in Europe that con-
tributed to the rise of Fair Trade certification forcoffee,
intended in part to give coffee farmers a
buffer against market fluctuations. Fair Trade and
other programs designed criteria for certifying the
production of items ranging from organic foods and
coffee to timber and pulp, with one aim being to
reward better management of forests with a premi-
um for proof of sustainable management. When
farmers have a buffer against market fluctuations,
they will be less likely to choose forest destruction
when prices go down. Now researchers and journal-ists are asking
whether certification is making a dif-
ference in the health of people and the forests where
these products originate.
Seeing the Forest for the Beans
Coffee beans, the worlds second largest traded
commodity, is a major cash crop for millions, espe-
cially in Latin America, where most coffee bushes
grow shaded by trees. In some places, coffee is
grown under managed tree cover, meaning the
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to another crop when coffee prices plummet.I was really
surprised at how few farmershad changed anything [in response to
coffeeprice changes], she says. Theyre so cultur-ally attached to
coffee. Still, she notes, thestudy sample size was very smalljust10
cooperativesand certification programsmay yet help to maintain
biodiversity underthe canopy that shade coffee requires.
In Oaxaca, however, Blackman and hisRFF colleagues found that
land use in cof-fee-growing areas did change in response tofalling
coffee prices. Farmers were clearingtrees in order to plant
subsistence cropsbecause their income from coffee was notsufficient
to support their families. Thecleared patches did not necessarily
replacecoffee; rather, many farmers were clearing inforested areas
near their farms where coffee
was not growing.Through a combination of informal
focus groups and satellite image analysis,
Blackman and his colleagues assembled apicture suggesting that
rock-bottom coffeeprices corresponded with a shift from forestcover
to subsistence crops during the 1990s.Patches of cleared forest
like those he sawaround Puerto Angel were often planted
with corn and beans for several years beforethe soil was
depleted. We dont have afarm-level survey, Blackman admits, butthat
appears to be whats going on.
His research in Mexico found that poli-cies that promoted farmer
marketing co-operatives, sometimes thought to underminenatural
forest conservation, can actuallysometimes help preserve tree cover
for shade
coffee and other nontimber crops. Inasmuchas Fair Trade and
other certification pro-grams promote well-run cooperatives,
theycan promote land use stability.
Blackman and colleagues also looked atEl Salvador, which lost
13% of its treecover in shade coffee areas between 1990and 2000.
They hypothesized that certifi-cation and direct payments were not
likelyto be effective in stemming tree clearing inthe western and
center regions of the coun-try, where most Salvadoran coffee is
grown.Land prices in these areas were so high thatfarmers reaped
big profits from sellingfarms to developers, and neither
certification
nor direct payments were likely to be largeenough to make a
difference in this calcula-tion. That said, says Blackman,
certifica-tion and direct payments could make adifference in some
parts of El Salvador, likethe east where a lot of clearing is due
to sub-sistence agriculture and not so much tourbanization. What
was needed, he conclud-ed, was for the government to more
vigorous-ly enforce restrictions on land use changes.
The best prospect for coffee growers, inBlackmans view, may rest
less on certification
and more on producing top-quality coffee.Agro-climatic factors
for premium coffeeshade forests at high elevationsfavorLatin
American countries. With betterfarm practices, the regions growers
arecapitalizing on that natural advantage.Certification may help,
says Blackman, butin the marketplace the really significantpremiums
come from quality, whetheryoure certified or not.
Certifiably Sound
Certification programs for other forestproducts may also hold
lessons for the cof-fee industry and policy makers. GaryDunning, a
program director at YalesSchool of Forestry and
EnvironmentalStudies, has for several years managed aninternational
dialogue on certification sys-tems for wood involving key private,
pub-lic, and nonprofit representatives. There area number of
national and international for-
est certification systems out there now. Oneof the most
respected, says Dunning, ismanaged by the Forest StewardshipCouncil
(FSC), an international nonprofitorganization that encourages
responsibleforest management. Besides the FSCs pro-gram for
certifying wood and paper, it isexploring certification of bamboo
and othernonwood items, including Brazil nuts.
Certification isnt just about certifyingthe tree and its
products, says Karen Steer, amember of the FSC board. Its about
certi-fying the whole forest. In that sense, it canbe a tool
adapted for different products topromote forest management that is
sustain-
able in its ecologic, economic, and socialindicators. Health and
social values areembedded in the contract that each produc-er signs
with the FSC, says Steer. The coun-cil uses two types of
assessments: a forestmanagement assessment and a chain-of-custody
document. The first assesses theenvironment before the product
leaves theforest; the second documents conditionsencountered at
each stage after the itemleaves the forest.
Steer witnessed certification at work inBolivia, where she spent
four months in late2005. There she saw that Fair Tradecertified
harvesters of Brazil nuts enjoyed a
more stable income and steadier demandand were therefore less
likely to overharvest
from the forestthan their noncertifiedcounterparts. She also saw
that human well-being and forest health are clearly inter-twined,
as evidenced by village clinics beingestablished with proceeds from
a healthierBrazil nut habitat and stable supply, andfamilies being
able to afford treatment.
Joshua Rosenthal, deputy director of theinternational research
division at the NIHFogarty International Center, views thatlinkage
through the lens of infectious diseaseand its transmission. In
general, diverse old-growth forests tend to buffer the effects
ofvarious infectious diseases. Deforested areasthat have allowed
numerous invasive speciesto establish themselves tend to have
higherinfection rates, says Rosenthal; they aremore likely to
harbor animals that can bereservoirs or vectors for spreading
diseaseand reduce the landscapes ability to retainand purify water.
To the extent that certifi-cation does contribute to
maintaining
healthy, diverse forests, youre likely to havereduced risk of
infectious disease.Steer sees a trend toward harmonizing
various certification programs that can some-times have
confusing overlap and differences.
Arguello says the farmers he works withwould welcome that
clarification. Many ofthe practices required for the different
labelsare the same, these farmers say, so whyhavent certifiers
created a common code?
Buyer Be Aware
Consumer education doesnt directlyaffect coffee-growing
communities, but itsvalue shouldnt be ignored, says North.
Consumers may be first drawn to buy cer-tified food products out
of concern fortheir personal health, but they thenbecome curious
about conditions up thesupply chain. That way, he says,
certifica-tion has a ratcheting effect on buyerawareness.
Dunning affirms that U.S. consumereducation can have an impact
on global for-est conservation. Europe has gone a long
way to monitor its supply stream, he says,speaking of the timber
market. Being thelargest consuming nation, the United Stateshas the
biggest role to play, which the
American public hasnt fully realized yet.
David A. Taylor
Environmental Health Perspectives VOLUME 115 | NUMBER 9 |
September 2007 A 459
Spheres of Influence | Certified Coffee
For More Information
Equal Exchange: http://www.equalexchange.net/
Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International:
http://www.fairtrade.net/
Forest Stewardship Council: http://www.fscus.org/
Resources for the Future: http://www.rff.org/
The Forests Dialogue: http://www.theforestsdialogue.org/
TransFair USA: http://www.transfairusa.org/
