What is the influence of The Shade Catalog agroforestry management on coffee planting industry

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Agroforestry system is a kind of planting method which has been widely promoted as beneficial to the environment, that is, trees and shrubs are integrated in the same place. This planting method can not only provide shade for sun-loving crops and soil, but also protect and enhance biodiversity, attract insects to pollinate plants, and improve soil quality.

However, as a large number of studies on coffee land management have shown, the situation is not the same everywhere.

To help identify shade plants grown in coffee, three sustainability-conscious non-profit organizations (Conservation International, the Smithsonian migrant Bird Center Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and World Coffee Research World Coffee Research) have teamed up to launch The Shade Catalog. The Shade Catalog is a catalogue designed to benefit the coffee growing environment and growers.

With regard to the first version of the catalogue of the project, the working group focused on Indonesia, the country with the largest production of Arabica beans and robusta beans in the world. Indonesia has about 2 million small coffee farmers and is one of the regions with the richest natural biodiversity in the world.

Conservation international fund Conservation International, the Smithsonian migrant Bird Center Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and the World Coffee Research World Coffee Research say the catalogue, called Indonesian Coffee Catalog, will continue to be updated. Similar catalogs will then be launched in other major coffee-producing countries, and their next target is Peru in 2022.

Ruth Bennett, an ecologist at the Smithsonian Institution's migrant Bird Center, said: "We want to encourage farmers and industry decision makers to adopt this agroforestry system in order to balance the relationship between people and the environment. Coffee is a unique crop because it can be planted with trees, which is good for climate, biodiversity and farmers' livelihoods. The catalogue is the starting point for similar work in coffee-growing areas around the world. "

From a practical point of view, this catalogue, similar to the groundbreaking Arabica coffee variety catalogue launched by World Coffee Research World Coffee Research, will provide important information on known commercial coffee varieties in the world today.

As things stand, this catalogue contains information on tree species currently found in the Indonesian coffee planting system, through interviews with farmers' groups and agroforestry experts, as well as English and Indonesian data compiled from scientific publications and technical reports, a tree species account was established. The data include the subject name of plants, leaf size, plant height, planting altitude, primary habitat environment and non-native habitat environment. The catalogue also identifies whether trees and shrubs have a positive impact on the cultivation of robusta beans or Arabica beans, while outlining their use and maintenance needs.

The catalogue contains important information about 125 varieties of coffee or shrubs, but is currently available only in English or Indonesian in print and online.

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