Laura Erickson's For the Birds

Last week, some people gathered at Duluth’s Barnes and Noble cafe to protest some of the practices Starbucks uses in buying and selling its coffee. Normally I don’t get involved in issues like this, because I like to keep my focus on birds and things that directly affect them. But the issue of coffee is a very important one for virtually every species of bird that nests in, migrates through, or winters in the tropical rainforest, including many Northland breeding birds.

American coffee trees originally grew in the rainforest, because they required shade. The trees did just fine interspersed with wild rainforest trees. But it was more efficient for short term profits for growers to develop strains of coffee that could grow in the sun, on plantations. There are several bad implications for this: first, we get a monoculture of coffee trees in a place where several hundred plant species were supposed to be, and losing that diversity of habitat means we lose all the birds and other creatures that required anything other than a coffee farm. Also, much of the tropics is naturally arid, and what makes rain or cloud forest precipitation isn’t weather patterns blowing in from the sea or other places, but simply the density of plants. The high humidity caused by their transpiration creates a self-sustaining water cycle. Chop down the rainforest and the air dries up, and suddenly there is desert where rich jungle once was.

Because of all the fungi and insects in extremely humid environments, rainforest plants produce a lot of chemicals to protect themselves. When we replace that environment with a coffee plantation, suddenly insects move in. A monoculture provides a feast for those pests that specialize on it, and so plantation coffee growers use a lot of pesticides. Shade-grown coffee is protected from insects and fungus by the rainforest plants around each tree, and so is usually grown without pesticides.

Shade grown coffee is more expensive than sun-grown plantation coffee, but that’s because the price of sun-grown coffee doesn’t reflect the real costs sustained by humans, birds and other animals, or the environment as a whole. Businesses and individuals that economize in the short term by buying cheaper, plantation-grown coffee, are saving pennies per cup at the expense of the tropical rainforest and everything that depends on it.

Starbucks does offer packaged shade­ grown coffee to its customers, but most people don’t buy their coffee in bulk there. They go to coffee cafes to buy a freshly-brewed cup. And Starbucks hardly ever brews shade-grown coffee. This year Starbucks cafes are planning to start brewing a pot of shade-grown coffee once a month. This amounts to less than 1% of the company’s total coffee sales. Ironically, shade­ grown coffee is considered by gourmets to be superior in flavor to sun-grown. You’d think a company that prides itself on superior coffee would want to give its customers superior coffee not tainted with pesticides.

I really enjoy a good cup of mocha, and so I’m drawn to the Barnes and Noble’s cafe like a moth to a flame. I’ve asked many times if they have any shade-grown coffee available, and had to explain what shade-grown coffee IS. But I keep asking. Until everyone selling coffee understands that customers really do not want to damage the rainforest for a cup of joe, the problem will continue.

America is a democracy, and at this point in our history people seem to be giving businesses enormous freedoms as far as government regulation go. That may be the will of the people. But if it is, the only way we can possibly influence businesses to sell environmentally friendly products is to take our money elsewhere when they don’t. If everyone listening to this program who buys coffee at Barnes and Noble were to speak up when they go there next time, and politely ask the cafe people if they have shade-grown coffee available, maybe the message would eventually trickle up to the people who actually make corporate decisions and the company would finally get the message that this is an issue to which attention must be paid.