|
 Amigos de Sombra,
On a recent trip to the northern jungle of Peru I saw a good reason to believe in shade grown coffee from a farmer's perspective. See the picture below.
Specifically, on this two-hour hike to the community we passed 22 land slides directly caused by erosion due to deforestation. As a result, over 40 acres of coffee farms were destroyed in January alone. This is financial devastation for this coffee community. One farmer calculated he will have  only 20 percent of a normal harvest, because he lost 80 percent of his trees to slides. Imagine losing 80 percent of your annual income!
Where topsoil (or loose soil) is deep and rains can be heavy, coffee trees (and some secondary shade trees) are not enough to prevent landslides. Many times only the old growth trees with very developed root systems can hold the soil back from gravity's pull.
So the lesson is basic to farmers: If you are going to plant a new coffee crop in the above scenario, then don't cut the old growth. Use the old growth as your shade trees and your soil insurance policy for those torrential rainy weeks.
From Peru,
K.C. O'Keefe
|
|
|
