Thinking of cutting down on coffee? Not so fast. We have a few stories about coffee and coffee farms, and now we get to tie a couple of them together. We’re back to Sulawesi, Indonesia, and this time we’re looking not just at bees and yields but at deforestation. And it turns out that losing forests can decrease coffee yields by up to 18%.
Lore-Lindu Park is threatened by illegal logging, agriculture, and population growth, but it’s home to bees that increase coffee production.
Before we start, a quick recap of how coffee and bees work together. The bean grows in coffee cherries, which are the fruit of the coffee flower. Flowers grow fruits when they are pollinated, and although coffee can pollinate itself, bees improve pollination dramatically. Forests benefit bees, which means that yields should improve as farms get closer to forests, because bees can only fly so far. And that’s exactly what happens:
- In Costa Rica, the number of bee visits increased when coffee farms were near forests, and coffee yields did too.
- In Sulawesi, forests and diverse trees and plants on coffee farms attracted a larger variety of bee species. That helped to increase coffee fruit set, or the number of flowers that turn into cherries with coffee beans inside.
Yes? Yes.
Deforestation in Sulawesi, Indonesia
Large-scale deforestation doesn’t happen overnight. The effects also usually aren’t clear for a long time, especially for metrics like crop yields that change often, so a model is helpful. Of course, nobody knows exactly what will happen in the future, so it’s good to test a few different cases. Lore-Lindu Park is threatened by illegal logging and agriculture and by population growth: people are moving into the area, and many of them clear land for farming. And even though it’s a national park, law enforcement isn’t always perfect. So some deforestation will probably always happen.
Deforestation can decrease coffee yields by up to 18%.
In the worst case, a lot of forest area is cleared quickly and illegally. This actually happened in the nearby Dongi-Dongi area, for a lot of political, economic, and social reasons that are also relevant for Lore Lindu Park. Plus, lower yields could make deforestation worse, because farmers may clear more forest to make up lost income.
What does deforestation do to coffee farms?
Just like in Costa Rica, if forests disappear, there are fewer bee visits, because the remaining forests are too far away. In the worst case scenario, yields would drop an average of 18% over 20 years. To make matters worse, total net revenues for the farms would drop almost 14% over 20 years based on the market price for coffee beans. On the bright side, in the best case, where forests are mostly saved, yields and incomes would be saved too.
If forests disappear, there are fewer bee visits, meaning less pollination, and less coffee.
On top of it all, the model doesn’t account for what happens to bee diversity when forests disappear. This means that yield and income decreases would probably be even worse!
So don’t cut down the trees.