This 2015 report details achievements and lessons learned of the Biodiversity Conservation in Coffee (BCC) project which “aimed to transform global coffee production to support reforestation, wildlife, water and soil conservation, waste and pest management and responsible labor practices.”
The goal was to assist farmers with adopting more sustainable coffee practices and subsequently being certified.
A brief literature review in this report summarises some of the benefits of certification more generally such as; “certified farms in Colombia had significantly healthier streams than noncertified farms”, “migratory birds in El Salvador showed a significant preference for natural forest and certified coffee plantations over intensified coffee sites and open farmland”, “in a survey of 197 coffee farmers in Latin America who had attained certification, 40 percent reported that their farms had become more productive as a result of the improvements they made to meet the SAN Standard’s social and environmental criteria” and “Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in El Salvador increased their yields by 76 percent, compared to 22 percent among noncertified farmers in a control group”.
The report then looks at specific BCC project case studies, for example in Peru, “as a direct result of the increased income [and training in sustainable agriculture and conservation of natural resources] received by obtaining and maintaining Rainforest Alliance certification, Don Julio Camaña of Peru’s Nagazu Villa Rica native community no longer extracts timber or hunts animals”.
In Brazil, Daterra, which in 2012 became the second coffee estate in the world to earn Rainforest Alliance verification for climate-smart agriculture preserves fifty percent of its land in its natural state which “helps to keep carbon safely sequestered and provides shelter, migratory routes and forage for wildlife.”
In Guatemala, Jorge Bolañas, manager of Finca Medina, a certified farm, is “outsmarting coffee rust disease” “in contrast to neighbors, who have experienced harvest losses of more than 25 percent despite spraying fungicides five or more times per year, Jorge and the dozens of smallholders who have applied his method reported a mere 5-10 percent reduction in harvest.
Jorge has also instituted excellent crop-management practices, including pheromone boxes to control pests, the composting of coffee waste (which supplies more than 30 percent of the nutrients for his fields) and the reforestation of hillsides (creating potential habitat for pollinators). He also reports that his net income is higher than that of many of his neighbors”.
To read the original, full report, click here (PDF file).
