Sustainable coffee is coffee that is grown and marketed for its sustainability. This includes certified organic, fair-trade and Rainforest Alliance coffee. Modern coffee farms tend to look like forests, with a mix of coffee trees and trees. However, these don't provide the canopy cover in which migratory birds and other native animals thrive.
If coffee is labeled “grown in the shade”, it means that a farm has returned to traditional methods of growing coffee. These farms have a variety of native trees that create a natural canopy under which coffee trees are grown. Shade-grown coffee helps increase biodiversity, helps prevent soil erosion and acts as a carbon sink. In addition, sustainable coffee also ensures that coffee producers receive fair wages to alleviate poverty.
This means that prices are not kept artificially low. When farmers receive fair pay for their crops, they can pay workers fairly, instead of exploiting workers or child labor. Sustainable coffee cultivation refers to beans harvested with a focus on nature conservation. It's hard to imagine that a cup of morning sickness can have a negative effect on the environment, but that's the way it is.
When you buy any coffee product from us, you are supporting coffee farms and producers grown in an ethical, sustainable and environmentally friendly way. In essence, sustainability, related to the supply chain and purchases, is the key to the future of coffee around the world. However, climate change, market price volatility, supply chain interruptions and compliance regulations have put coffee production, including quality and sustainability, at risk. They can move their coffee farms to higher altitudes that are increasingly suitable for coffee production.
The weather is a little colder on average the higher you climb. With Fairtrade certification, coffee producer organizations are guaranteed to receive at least the minimum Fairtrade price for their coffee, which aims to cover their production costs and act as a safety net when market prices fall below a sustainable level. In the context of this blog, traceability can lead to ensuring that ethical and sustainable practices are carried out by offering workers a fair wage, in addition to ensuring that working conditions are safe and the environment is protected. In coffee-producing countries, more than 25 million families around the world rely on coffee cultivation for their livelihood, and more than 50 countries produce and export coffee.
Shade-grown coffee also allows farmers to preserve their current coffee farms, instead of cutting down more forests in higher areas, reducing deforestation. Ueshima Speciality coffee beans come from a group of small producers participating in the verified initiative of NKG Bloom (Neumann Kaffee Gruppe), which works to ensure the long-term viability of green coffee supplies by providing small farmers with the opportunities and resources they need to manage their farms to their full potential and lift themselves out of poverty. With its powerful supply chain software, BanQu can help you track and trace your coffee to farms that use regenerative and sustainable agriculture methods and fair labor practices. It can also be difficult to know what to prioritize in order to achieve true sustainability as a brand that supplies coffee, especially when the coffee industry contributes to so much deforestation around the world.
Green coffee refers to the early stages of coffee production, when beans are grown, harvested and transported.
