While I was sitting at a Starbucks thinking of what this week’s theme of environmental pollution should be, I smelled a strong whiff of aromatic coffee. At that moment, I realised that I had no idea what went into producing coffee and if there were any environmental repercussions to this coffee production chain.

The coffee production chain is extensive, starting from the production and preparation of coffee plants that produce coffee beans to the retail sector and so on. For this post, I will be focusing solely on bean production and preparation and its environmental implications.

The demand for coffee consumption is gargantuan to say the least. Mahoney et al., (2019) found that college students in the United States alone drank an average of 159mg of caffeine daily, which is an estimated one and a half cups of coffee a day. This massive demand for coffee creates challenges in the supply chain, resulting in unsustainable growing methods that create environmental pollution.

Traditionally, coffee used to be cultivated under a shaded canopy of  trees, providing a resistance against topsoil erosion and thus removing the need for agrochemical fertilisers (Blacksell, 2011). However, to cater to the massive demand for coffee beans, farmers have been incentivised to switch their traditional cultivation methods to under the sun cultivation, where there is a lack of shade for the coffee plants. As such, topsoil erosion occurs and there is a subsequent need for chemical fertilisers.

Furthermore, the switch to sun-grown cultivation means that there is need to clear more arable land, leading to deforestation. For example, within a year, Brazil cleared 13,235 square kilometres of forest to make way for coffee production (Jacob, 2021). This loss of a carbon sink becomes detrimental for the environment as carbon capture by the forests is then released into the air. With poor fertiliser management, excess fertiliser is then polluted into streams and groundwater (United Nations Environment Programme, 2021). The long-term impacts of poor fertiliser management have also shown to increase soil acidification and soil hospitality to nematodes and plant diseases, which in turn reduces soil and fertility, requiring increasing levels of fertiliser to compensate for reduced productivity (United Nations Environment Programme, 2021). This illustrates a cycle of excessive fertiliser use, aggravating the existing environmental pollution caused by initial chemical fertiliser use.

Environmental pollution from coffee bean cultivation is difficult to combat as smallholder producers may not have access to certain information and knowledges, resulting in unnecessarily intensive and costly practices that produce chemical pollution that may travel and transform into aquatic pollution.

The high demand from consumers such as myself for a cup of coffee have created a sleuth of environmental problems in the coffee production chain. Now to throw a question back to you: Do you know how much chemical fertiliser goes into making your cup of coffee?

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