Coffee Farming Resources

The creation of an excellent cup of coffee begins at the farm.

We’re building a collection of educational coffee farming resources, curated from respected publications and industry leaders, to help our community stay up to date with advances in coffee farming research, technology, and best practices.

We plan to offer more resources specifically tailored for the current needs of the Jamaican coffee farming community after the completion of our Field Survey.

 
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Recent Articles and Research

 

“Adriana Villenueva is the CEO of InConexus, which exports specialty coffees from Colombia. ‘For me, an efficient farm is one that takes advantage of their resources,’ she says. ‘Efficiency is related to different things: use of energy, use of water resources, how producers are processing the coffee, how they are drying it, and then you compare the efficiency from volume against quality.’”

“Efficient farming practices aren’t simply methods to increase yield. Rather, they are ways of making your individual farm run as smoothly as possible. Increased efficiency should allow you to produce the best quality you can, while still considering your economic and environmental impact. By evaluating your own processes, you may increase your yield, but you may also producer better-quality coffee that brings you better prices and also improves the livelihoods of your family and workers.”

 

“Ray Taggart is Farm Manager at Heavenly Hawaiian, a coffee farm in Kona, Hawaii. He tells me that in coffee plants grafting is used to ‘take the best attributes of two coffee cultivars and combine them to get all the benefits of both in a single plant.’”

“Ray says, ‘For coffee specifically, we are mostly looking for the vigorous growth rate of the roots. The roots of the Liberica cultivar grow much faster than the Arabica cultivar. They can outgrow the damaging effects of a nematode that lives in the soil. The nematode eats the roots of the trees and Liberica grows so fast that the trees are not affected by the damage.’

“So, grafting can reduce the risk of losing a coffee harvest to pests, and the need for pesticides.”

 

“The topic of organic coffee can be polarizing. For those in favor of it, the environmental benefits of organic production are obvious. Those on the other side might mention the inefficient and expensive certification process, and the fact that any chemical residues will be burnt off in the roasting process.”

“A biodiverse, organic farm could be healthier and more resilient in the long term than a technified, full sun coffee farm, but it’s difficult to quantify that resiliency. When comparing an organic to a non-organic farm, the non-organic one may look more successful because this assessment is based only on factors that are easy to measure, such as yield and cost of production.”

“The market outlook for organic coffee is difficult to gauge – certified organic sales are not centrally aggregated and are therefore difficult to track. A report on US organic trade data from 2011 to 2016 states that imports and prices paid for organic coffee in the US are mostly steady but have trickled off in recent years. But a 2018 report on sustainable markets observes that land area dedicated to organic production is increasing worldwide.”

“Cultivating organic coffee can be a challenging, risky proposition, and the costs of certification can place a significant burden on producers. But if you are already inclined toward sustainable agriculture, the environmental and health benefits of an organic method might be appealing. It may also put you in a better market position, because you will have a premium product.”

 

“When prices are low, you can decide to cut costs or aim to maximize quality to push price differential above production cost. How different variables affect production cost is the basis of your coffee-growing operations.

“Production cost is the foundation for understanding the farm, analyzing the impact of decisions, and evaluating the success of any strategies you choose to implement.”

 

Abstract:

“Long-term monoculture severely inhibits coffee plant growth, decreases its yield and results in serious economic losses in China. Here, we selected four replanted coffee fields with 4, 18, 26 and 57 years of monoculture history in Hainan China to investigate the influence of continuous cropping on soil chemical properties and microbial communities. Results showed long-term monoculture decreased soil pH and organic matter content and increased soil EC. Soil bacterial and fungal richness decreased with continuous coffee cropping. Principal coordinate analysis suggested monoculture time was a major determinant of bacterial and fungal community structures. Relative abundances of bacterial Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Nitrospira and fungal Ascomycota phyla decreased over time. At genus level, potentially beneficial microbes such as Nitrospira and Trichoderma, significantly declined over time and showed positive relationships with coffee plant growth in pots. In conclusion, continuous coffee cropping decreased soil pH, organic matter content, potentially beneficial microbes and increased soil EC, which might lead to the poor growth of coffee plants in pots and decline of coffee yields in fields. Thus, developing sustainable agriculture to improve soil pH, organic matter content, microbial activity and reduce the salt stress under continuous cropping system is important for coffee production in China.”

 

“Our coffee can only be as good as the land that it’s grown on – but by my calculations, nearly 35% of coffee crops are produced in the wrong environmental conditions.

“I’m talking about something called life zone, which refers to the temperature, luminosity/solar brilliance, rainfall, relative humidity, and soil characteristics that are best suited to coffee farming.

“As an agronomist, allow me to take you through the ideal life zone for growing coffee – and what poor conditions will mean for your harvests.”