Shaded Coffee: A way to Increase Sustainability in Brazilian Organic Coffee plantations

Summary

Consumption of specialty coffee, mainly organic coffee, increases worldwide following the tendency of consuming social and ecological sustainable products. Brazil is the world largest coffee producer, with an average of 2,300,000 tons of green coffee in the last 5 years. Cultivation of organic coffee and shaded coffee are common in Central America, while in Brazil both conventional and organic coffee are cultivated in the full sun system. The full sun system is criticized due to the lack of biodiversity and high demand for inputs. Shaded coffee system has more biodiversity, recycles and fix more chemical elements, such as N, P, K, Ca and C, having a great potential to mitigate the global warming, being consequently more sustainable. In Brazil, shaded coffee system is not well trusted and known as less productive. Seeking for organic coffee sustainability, this work evaluates productivity, coffee quality and chemical composition of coffee beans from two distinct organic coffee systems: shaded and full sun, in the largest arabica coffee producing region of the world, south of Minas Gerais State, Brazil. For productivity and coffee quality there was no statistical difference, although there was a tendency of superiority for the shaded treatment. For coffee beans composition, the shaded system presented higher K values. Considering the results obtained, the shaded system can be suited to increase organic coffee sustainability in this region of Brazil.