Coffee Production and Trade

Coffee botany and ecology

Ecology and cultivation

Shade grown coffee

Being a tropical plant, coffee requires a warm climate without sudden temperature shifts, and requires plenty of rainfall. It can grow between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, but requires very specific environmental conditions for commercial cultivation. These vary according to the variety grown, but temperature, rainfall, sunlight, wind and soil are all important.

All coffee is easily damaged by frost (one night below 0°C can cause extensive defoliation), and this is a risk in southern Brazil, or closer to the Equator, at altitudes of 2000 metres.

In general, coffee needs an annual rainfall of 1500 to 3000 mm, arabica generally requiring less, and the rainfall pattern is important for growth, budding and flowering.

Whereas robusta coffee can be grown between sea-level and about 800 metres, arabica does best at higher altitudes and is often grown in hilly areas. All coffee needs good drainage, but it can grow on soils of different depths, pH and mineral content, given suitable applications of fertilizer.

Coffee seedling in nursery

The two main coffee production systems are known as 'shade-grown' and 'full-sun' coffee. Full-sun coffee (also called 'technified' coffee) tends to be monocropped robusta coffee, as often seen in Brazil. Shade-grown coffee is grown under taller trees, which can consist of other economic crops such as bananas and pepper, and tends to be arabica coffee. However, farmers employ a variety of techniques when growing their coffee depending on prevailing economic, farm-specific and microclimatic factors.

The first harvest of a newly-planted coffee tree usually takes place after two years, but optimal yields are only reached some two to three years later. Trees will continue to produce high quality beans for up to 20 years, which is then followed by a further 20 years of declining quality production (van Djik et al. 1998).

Coffee is produced in about 80 tropical and sub-tropical countries, and some 10.6 million hectares are currently under coffee production. More than 50% of global coffee production comes from holdings of less than 5 hectares (Clay, 2004), thus indicating the importance of the crop to smallholder farmers.