|
When we sip into our coffee cups in those of our much awaited leisure hours, or before we leave for office; we seldom give a thought about what a cup of coffee costs on the environment and that we can contribute towards reducing it, yet enjoying an even tastier and richer coffee. What we need to do is to just pick up Organic Shade Grown Coffee and that’s all! You might think that this “Organic Shade Grown Coffee” is yet another way of marketing products and it really makes no difference whether a coffee is shade grown or not and this whole “Shade Grown” issue is another gimmick to attract customers. But it is not so. Organic Shade Grown Coffee really has an upper edge over the normal coffee. How? Let us know some facts about it.
• Coffee: Those who have an in-depth study in coffee know that the first coffee plants, which where ancestors to the present ones, actually grew in shade and could not tolerate sun. Coffee originally grows in shade and grows best there. This shade was best provided by the big trees with wide leaves in the tropical forests (coffee actually is a tropical plant) and the little coffee grown there was sufficient to meet the demand of the local inhabitants. Slowly but steadily, coffee started gaining popularity around the world but the tropical forests started reducing fast to meet the requirements of the growing population. So, while on one hand the demand started growing, the land where coffee grew started shrinking on the other. To meet such a demand, farmers could no longer be dependent on the shade grown coffee and soon scientists developed new varieties of coffee which could grown in open fields and gave more production. But the drawback with these varieties was that these varieties were very much dependent on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and weedicides to thrive.
• Concern: Quite late, people started to realize that the coffee they were drinking was no longer safe and it was costing heavy on the environment, as the tropical forests were being cleared at a dangerous rate to make way for coffee and the chemical fertilizers and pesticides used on coffee plantations were polluting the environment badly. Millions of acres of tropical rainforests, which are also called storehouses of biodiversity, were cut down to make coffee plantations as these new varieties needed sunlight and could not thrive well in shade. Naturally, the coffee obtained from them had devastating effects on environment and was no longer pure or harmless as it contained those toxic chemicals. Hundreds of species of flora and fauna became extinct just for the sake of a few cups of coffee. This concern made them to turn their heads again towards the traditional shade cultivation of coffee, but this time with an improvement. This was called Organic Shade Coffee Cultivation and the coffee so obtained came to be known as Organic Shade Grown Coffee.
• Organic Shade Grown Coffee: Organic Shade Grown Coffee is obtained from the plantations raised in the shade of big trees, caves etc. and no chemical fertilizers or pesticides are used on them. The pest control is done in organic or biotic way, that is, animals like birds, bats, frogs, snakes, owls and other such insectivorous animals play their part and we play ours with the help of organic herbal pesticides. Similarly, no chemical fertilizers are used on them. The natural compost or manure formed of the fallen tree leaves; remains of plants of animals; animal wastes and night soil etc. fulfill the nutritional requirements of coffee plants. There are a few varieties of Organic Shade Grown Coffee, mainly named after the styles of farming.
• Organic Rustic: Original traditional style where coffee is grown in dense forests or caves to avail the shade.
• Organic Traditional Poly-culture: This is more like mixed farming where big trees are allowed to grow in coffee farms to avail shade and to maintain nutritional value of the land.
• Organic Specialized or Reduced Shade: This style of cultivation involves growth of plantation under an artificial shade or canopy.
• Benefits: Organic Shade Grown Coffee is richer in taste than its regular counterpart. The reason being its slower growth and late maturity due to which the natural sugar, caffeine and fats (fatty acids) build up more in it, contributing to richer taste. The second benefit from Organic Shade Grown Coffee is more valuable than the first one. Being organically cultivated, absolutely no chemical fertilizers, pesticides and weedicides are used on them and hence such cultivation causes no pollution of land, air or water. Further, since these coffee plants need shade to grow, therefore this cultivation encourages forestation (as big areas are subjected to plantations which eventually grow into forests) and discourages deforestation (already existing forest cover is utilized to provide shade). Thus Organic Shade Grown Coffee is good for the environment too.
• Certification: Like any other organic product, you should check this coffee too for certificate of authenticity. One such certification is done by Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center who, although does not certify that the shade grown coffee is organic, certifies that the coffee plantation does not harm the birds and their habitat. National Programme for Organic Production is one such programme running in India which certifies Organic Coffee through few of its bodies like Coffee Board of India and APEDA (Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority. There are various other agencies functioning in other countries who certify whether the coffee you are buying is Organic Shade Grown Coffee or not.
• Demerits: Well! It is a universal truth that there are two aspects of everything and Organic Shade Grown Coffee is no exception. If it has taste, health benefits and environment friendliness as its merits, it has certain demerits too. They are;
• Lesser Availability: Although shade cultivation of coffee is catching up fast, still it has a long way to go to catch up with the conventionally cultivated coffee in terms of volume of production. It has valid reasons. Out of the total available total forest cover left (you know the rate at which the forests are vanishing) in the world, the tropical forest cover which can actually be used for shade cultivation of coffee is negligible and that too is diminishing. When this is compared to the space used for conventional coffee cultivation, shade cultivation stands no where. So, but natural, Organic Shade Grown Coffee is scarcely available and almost nothing for the increasing demand. Hence, it is quite possible that you will not get it in your locality.
• Higher Price: It was bound to be costlier! The reason is simple too. The demand for Organic Shade Grown Coffee is too big to be met by so little a production. Then, the manufacturer has to pay for the certificate of authenticity too, which adds to the cost. Again, since most of the processing of Organic Shade Grown Coffee is done manually and organically (lesser involvement of machines and no chemicals at all), the labour charges and processing cost increases.
• Impact on Market: The present production of Organic Shade Grown Coffee is too less to influence the market and the things are not going to reverse overnight or drastically because of so less cultivable land (tropical forest covered land, natural caves etc.) which is not likely to increase (even if it does, it will be nominal) in future due to ever growing population. But let us hope that it does because that will be beneficial for the whole environment.
• Cultural Aspects: Organic Shade Grown Coffee reserves a place in the culture of those places where coffee actually originated and is a part of their culture, because it is the way coffee was actually grown. In many rituals, people prefer to use the Organic Shade Grown Coffee to the regular coffee.
• Thanks Giving: The biggest share of the credit behind re-popularization of Organic Shade Grown Coffee and bringing the taste back to the world must go to the local poor coffee farmers in the motherlands of coffee who had no choice but to stick to the traditional shade cultivation of coffee in organic way as they could neither afford the costly synthetic fertilizers and pesticides nor could buy fresh cleared fields to grow new plantations. They resorted to the forests and caves and their struggle eventually sparked on a sort of movement. Thanks to them!
• Your Duty: If you sincerely and honestly love nature and want to play a role to preserve and protect the environment, you can just do it by buying Organic Shade Grown Coffee. As the demand will grow, the production too will and so the forests. Further, the environment will be less polluted by those artificial toxic fertilizers and pesticides. Just make that sure. Bye!
This article was contributed by Aparup Mukherjee
|
