The Potential of Latin American Coffee Production Systems to Mitigate Climate Change

Abstract

A carbon footprint is used to define the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) that is emitted along supply chains and is the first step towards reducing GHG emissions. In the coffee sector specifically, there is little literature and data regarding the carbon footprints of different coffee production systems and supply chains. Therefore, GHG data from different coffee production systems has been compiled for this study and compared to on-farm carbon stocks and the relevant carbon footprint. To quantify on-farm carbon stocks and carbon footprints the cool farm tool (CFT) has been used. The CFT uses the Tier II methodology of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) and is based on empirical GHG quantification models built from hundreds of peer-reviewed studies. Field data has been collected in five countries across Latin America, from the following coffee production systems: (i) traditional polycultures, (ii) commercial polycultures, (iii) shaded monocultures, and (iv) unshaded monocultures. The results show low mean carbon footprints for coffee produced in traditional polycultures (3.7 kg CO2-ekg−1) and commercial polycultures (3.9 kg CO2-ekg−1), versus high carbon footprints for shaded monocultures (9.2 kg CO2-ekg−1) and unshaded monocultures (9.4 kg CO2-ekg−1). The same trend is observed with regard to mean on-farm carbon stocks; polycultures (70.9 t C ha−1) versus monocultures (17.8 t C ha−1). Based on these results a framework for site-specific mitigation has been developed to assist coffee farmers in defining climate friendly farm practices in order to accelerate climate change mitigation in Latin American coffee production.