Coffee production is threatened in some parts of the planet by climate change, but this is not the only danger to the plant that makes possible the second most consumed drink (by humans) in the whole planet (only surpassed by water and with a slight advantage over tea).
In addition to addressing the climate crisis, to continue drinking quality coffee at a reasonable price it is essential to maintain biological diversity and ecosystems (systems in which living organisms and the physical environment interact).
Bees facilitate the pollination of coffee plants, the new study shows.
Specifically, the presence of birds and pollinating insects such as bees is essential for good coffee production (in quality and quantity), according to an experimental study led by Alejandra MartÃnez-Salinas, from the Tropical Agronomic Center for Research and Teaching, in Turrialba (Costa Rica), whose results have been published (April 4) in the journal Proceedings of the United States Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
"Coffee beans are larger and more abundant when birds and bees come together to protect and pollinate coffee plants," says the informative summary published by the University of Vermont in Burlington (UVM, in the United States), an institution to which the main researcher of this study, ecologist Taylor Ricketts, belongs. director of several works carried out in recent years on the ecological improvement in coffee crops.
The authors have compared on the ground the production of coffee plantations and, in the economic section, conclude that "without winged helpers such as birds and bees, some traveling thousands of kilometers, coffee growers would see a 25% drop in crop yields, a loss of approximately 1,066 dollars per hectare of coffee per year."
A concept to keep in mind
The results that are now published are important for the coffee sector and consumers but a magnificent opportunity to know and understand a concept that technicians call "ecosystem services", "ecosystem services" or "environmental services": benefits that an ecosystem brings to society, for the improvement of health, the economy or the quality of life in general. The most obvious case of ecosystem service is the pollination of crops by insects and birds.
The authors of the study published in PNAS did the test comparing productions in 30 coffee farms.In several of these farms they installed nets and roofs that prevented the entry of birds and / or bees. "Four key scenarios were tested: unique bird activity (with insect control), bee activity, no bird and bee activity, and finally a natural environment, where bees and birds interacted freely," the University of Vermont says.
Global study of the problem
"Until now, researchers generally calculated the benefits of nature separately and then simply added them up," explains Alejandra MartÃnez-Salinas. "But nature is an interacting system, full of important synergies and trade-offs. We show the ecological and economic importance of these interactions, in one of the first experiments at realistic scales on real farms."
"These results suggest that previous assessments of individual ecological services, including major global efforts such as IPBES, may actually underestimate the benefits that biodiversity brings to agriculture and human well-being," said Taylor Ricketts. "These positive interactions mean that ecosystem services are more valuable together than separately."
Coffee producers must ensure the natural balance of crops if they want to maintain the quality and quantity of the beans.
The combined positive effects of birds and bees on fruit set, weight and uniformity, key factors in quality and price, were greater than their individual effects, the study shows.
"An important reason we measure these contributions is to help protect and conserve the many species we depend on and sometimes take for granted," says Natalia Aristizábal, of UVM's Gund Institute for the Environment and the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. "Birds, bees and millions of other species sustain our lives and livelihoods, but they face threats such as habitat destruction and climate change."
One of the most surprising aspects of the study was that many birds providing pest control to coffee plants in Costa Rica had migrated thousands of miles from Canada and the U.S., including Vermont, where the UVM team is located. The team is also studying how changing agricultural landscapes affect the ability of birds and bees to provide benefits to coffee production.
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