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Header A smarter way to fight climate change INTRO
SOLIDARIDAD’S CLIMATE SMART COFFEE PROJECTS DEMONSTRATE HOW COFFEE PRODUCTION CAN PRACTICALLY IMPLEMENT SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES AND REDUCE THE RISKS PRESENTED BY CLIMATE CHANGE.
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or the xx coffee industry to combat climate change, it must first equip its producers with theXx tools, G C R knowledge, and resources to mitigate their emissions and the impact it has on them. In its Climate Smart Agriculture projects in Latin For2013, more Solidaridad information,launched visit America, building a use case for how coffee production can practically implement practices that increase producers’ resilience and reduce carbon emissions. These projects have been run in several countries, including Colombia, Peru, and Mexico. “Climate Smart Agriculture involves four main practices, the first of which is increasing the number of trees per hectare to achieve an optimal production point,” says Andrea Olivar, Strategy Director for Solidaridad in South America. “When the plot they’re producing on is no longer providing good yields, farmers have sometimes been forced to expand into new areas. A possible solution is to be able to do more on
Solidaridad’s Climate Smart Coffee projects have helped farmers improve yields, agroforestry, and resource management.
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less land, so they don’t need to expand into new areas and contribute to soil degradation and deforestation.” Higher yields translate to increased profitability, better equipping producers to make sustainable changes on their farms. Olivar says this leads into the next two practices: agroforestry and fertiliser use. “We’ve worked in several countries with unique production systems, so the three countries we’ve run these projects in have different challenges in delivering a climate smart agenda compared to others in the world,” she says. “For instance, in Peru and Mexico, deforestation is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions because you’re no longer sequestering that carbon. But in Colombia and largescale producing countries like Brazil and Vietnam, deforestation is not the biggest contributor but fertiliser usage. Shade trees are also less common in Colombia than a region like Peru, so part of introducing Climate Smart Agriculture is education on optimal use of agroforestry and shade.” Another large source of greenhouse gas emissions from coffee production in Colombia, Olivar says, comes from post-harvest processing. This includes from the crop residues generated during processing and anaerobic decomposition of wastewater, resulting in significant methane emissions. This is why more efficient wastewater treatment is the final practice Solidaridad identifies under its Climate Smart Agriculture. Across the three countries, Solidaridad’s Climate Smart Coffee projects have involved
