Various Aspects and Potential Solutions for Achieving

Worldwide Sustainable Coffee Industry

Arranged By:
Hazira Fatiqah Binti Abdullah (Universiti Malaysia Terengganu)
Lai Yin Shuen (Universiti Malaysia Terengganu)
Meldiana Hutabarat (IPB University)
Mohammad Amiruddin Razak (Universiti Malaysia Terengganu)
Motoki Inoue (Kagoshima University)
Naymul Islam (University of Tsukuba)
Nur Syahirah Binti Zhubir (Universiti Malaysia Terengganu)
Nurul Syahmimi Binti Azmi (Universiti Malaysia Terengganu)
Saravanan Supramaniam (Universiti Malaysia Terengganu)
Shofura Qurotul 'Aini (IPB University)

SUMMER COURSE DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL

AND BIOSYSTEM ENGINEERING
FACULTY OF AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY
IPB UNIVERSITY
2021
 1. Introduction

Agriculture has changed since the ancient civilization and started to accelerate
dramatically from the last few decades to cope up with the increasing food demand.
Food and fiber productivity has soared due to new technologies, mechanization,
increased chemical use, specialization, and government policies which favored the
maximization of production and reduction of food prices. Modern technological
developments have had many positive effects and reduced many risks in farming, as
well as impacting the social, environmental and economical arenas significantly.
Current researches on sustainable agricultural practices have potential to solve many
challenges among which topsoil depletion, groundwater contamination, air pollution,
greenhouse gas emissions, the decline of family farms, negligence of the living and
working conditions of farm laborers, new threats to human health and safety due to the
spread of new pathogens, economic concentration in food and agricultural industries,
disintegration of rural communities etc. are prominent.

To overcome these challenges of the agriculture industries, the movement for

sustainable agricultural practices has received increasing support and acceptance within
the farmers and food processing communities. Sustainable agriculture integrates three
main components which are environmental health, economic profitability, and social
equity. Agricultural sustainability rests on the principle that we must meet the needs of
the present without compromising the future generations’ ability to meet their own
needs.

As one of the most important commodities in terms of value traded globally, coffee
plays a crucial role in the livelihoods of millions of rural households across the
developing world. Coffee is the most popular and consumed brewed drink prepared
from roasted coffee beans, the seed from certain Coffea species. As a product frequently
purchased by a significant share of worldwide consumers on a daily basis in social
occasions, the coffee industry has earned a high profile that also attracts the interest of
non-government, governments, multilateral organizations and development specialists
and has been an early adopter of Voluntary Sustainability
Standards (VSS). Literature shows that positive effects have been identified since VSS
started. However, the time has come to re-evaluate the current model, not only with the
objective of what it has achieved, but also to look for new ways to approach
sustainability and obtain a bigger and wider effect that more closely reflects the
complex reality of coffee growing.

Modern agricultural technology management is nowadays crucial in terms of the

economy and the global market, while food safety, quality control, and eco-friendly
practices should not be neglected. Coffee production and trade has been facing
significant challenges for each pillar of sustainable development in ways that highlight
their interconnectedness. In this study we will focus on sustainability solutions in the
coffee industry in terms of social, economic and environmental pillars of sustainability
in an integrated technological solution in a coherent manner.

2. Social, Economical and Environmental Aspects of Coffee

2.1 Social/People Aspects

Coffee has a special place in the lives of most people in the world. As a social
custom, coffee confers adult status, since children are not allowed to drink it. Its daily
use stimulates social interaction. The coffee pot is present at most workplaces, business
meetings, and social gatherings. The coffee break is a time for relaxed conversation
during the workday. Coffee drinking is widespread in the United States: in 1976 some
101 million people 20 years or older-80% of the U.S. adult population-drank an average
of 3.2 cups of coffee a day (U.S Department of the Health, Education and Welfare,
1980). Despite its ubiquity and popularity, coffee drinking has come under attack. The
morning newspaper, over which most people drink their first cup of coffee, has carried
stories relating coffee and caffeine-the active drug in coffee, tea, and some soft drinks-
to cause cancer, birth defects, and heart disease. Some groups have begun describing the
United States as a nation of “caffeine addicts” and the Food and the Drug
Administration has warned pregnant women to limit their consumption of coffee and
other substances that contain caffeine. Is the one socially accepted “cup of coffee”
undergoing redefinition? Is coffee drinking becoming a social problem (Troyer and
Markle 1984).

Most people do not yet define coffee as a social problem. However, the
consumption of caffeine has become the object of controversy. Some groups are
pressing government agencies to regulate caffeine in products and urging the public to
reduce or eliminate their caffeine consumption. Coffee and soft drink industry groups
are waging a counter campaign, even trying to persuade people to consume more of
their products. These activities are examples of the initial stages of the social problem
process, during which some groups attempt to transform some putative condition into a
public issue while others seek to prevent such public recognition. Although coffee
drinking has not progressed beyond the early stages of the social problem process,
attempts to redefine coffee drinking offer sociologists an opportunity to examine the
dynamics involved.

2.2 Economical Aspects

Coffee is an extremely important agricultural commodity, produced in about 80

tropical countries, with an estimated 125 million people depending on it for their
livelihoods in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, with an annual production of about nine
million tons of green beans. However, coffee production are reducing at a rapid pace
due to various threats, such as increasing demand of foods leading to conversion of land
to agriculture, deforestation, and land degradation; low profit of the coffee cultivator
leading to the shift of coffee cultivation to other more remunerative crops; and climate
change, leading to increased incidence of pests and diseases, higher incidence of
drought, and unpredictable rainfall patterns. All these factors threaten livelihoods in
many coffee-growing countries.

The economics of coffee production has changed in recent years, with prices on
the international market declining and the cost of inputs increasing. At the same time,
the demand for specialty coffee is at an all-time high. In order to make coffee
production sustainable, attention should be paid to improving the quality of coffee by
engaging in sustainable, environmentally friendly cultivation practices, which ultimately
can claim higher net returns. All these factors make the coffee crop less attractive
throughout the supply chain, especially to growers, who will seek other, more
remunerative crops to replace coffee. Despite these challenges, world coffee production
has grown steadily since the 1960s, although it will be difficult to maintain this trend
due to the continued rise in production costs, problems related to climate change, and
the higher incidence of pests and diseases. In nearly all coffee- exporting countries,
dependence on coffee as the main foreign export earner has fallen, although coffee is
still extremely important in the economy of many countries.

A major concern throughout the coffee industry is the small percentage of the
total value of coffee recieved by the producers and producing countries. In addition to
the cost of production incurred by the producing countries, which include cost of
fertilizers, pesticides, transportation, etc., the increase in the value of coffee also comes
from costs incurred by the consuming countries, such as advertising, wages, rents,
insurance, utilities, transportation, etc. Like all other agricultural commodities, coffee
has an uncertain market future. Price volatility, dictated by supply and demand, and
climate events affect the economics of the coffee trade.

2.3 Environmental Aspects

The coffee industry is facing many environmental challenges due to the
unsustainable behaviors of the people. The environmental effect of agriculture varies
depending on the agricultural method utilized. Here, the shift from shade-grown of
coffee to more intensive farming methods implies that coffee production has a greater
environmental impact now than it did previously. Climate change is also expected to
have a significant impact on coffee farmers.

As temperature increases, the quantity of agricultural land decreases, and pests

and illnesses thrive in larger regions, the coffee production become more and more
difficult for the cultivator. Unpredictable weather patterns will have an influence on
coffee ripening and cause serious problems with coffee quality. It may
be difficult to examine the entire supply chain of every products by common people, so
it’s better to focus on what each of us can do as consumers, such as taking educated
decisions that can help to minimize energy use, reduce trash volume, and total carbon
footprint, which will eventually curb the climate change. Droughts, illnesses, and insects
are all directly or indirectly caused by climate change and its irregular and harsh weather
patterns, and they all have an influence on the quality and development of coffee beans.

Originally, coffee was cultivated in complex ecosystems or tropical and

subtropical locations with diverse floras that contribute to high levels of variety and
shade that creates habitat for local animals and insects. The trees and animals assisted in
preventing topsoil erosion and the need for fertilizer. As the worldwide demand for
coffee increased, so did the necessity for plantations become necessary, resulting in the
removal of shade trees and animal habitats. These plantations, which began in the
1970s, have no shaded canopies, implying that chemical fertilizers and other non-
organic interventions are now essential. The loss of trees and the sun's influence damage
soil quality and contribute to increased levels of erosion.

It has resulted in the loss of 2.5 million acres of forest in Central America.
According to the WWF, 37 of the world's 50 countries with the greatest deforestation
rates are coffee producing countries. Hence, coffee processing factories frequently
dump waste into rivers, causing pollution and contamination issues that can lead to
eutrophication of water systems and the death of aquatic plants and animals.

3. Solutions for achieving sustainability

3.1 Use of Information Technology Achieving Sustainability

Even though coffee is sold in the international market at a very high price, the
small-scale coffee cultivators and farmers are getting a very small amount of that
profits. There are two key factors which cause this. Firstly, most of the small-scale
farmers are forced to sell their harvested and processed coffee to the middlemen at very
low prices as a result the middlemen reap massive profits while the farmers end up with
very little earnings. Secondly, as there is no traceability system or transparency of the
harvesting and processing of coffee, so even if the quality of the coffee bean is high, the
farmers don’t get proper compensation. As a result, small scale coffee farmers are losing
huge potential premiums and price margins. Here, if small hold farmers could aggregate
their products in the cooperative/union framework as well as use information
technology to build a traceability system then they don’t have to sell their products to
the middleman and also due to proper transparency of the coffee production and
processing, farmers will get high prices for their products. A hypothetical model for a
food traceability system requires the integration of hardware technologies such as
Global positioning system, identification labels, and devices to capture, store and
visualize images as well as software’s to keep track of the supply chains (Aung and
Chang 2014).

Figure 1: Flowchart of the coffee processing process

For providing transparency, the traceability system should provide information

about six stages such as harvesting record, estimated quality record, hopper entry
record, fermentation record, coffee washing record and coffee drying record. Here,
figure 1 shows the flowchart of the coffee processing processes, and all of these
information are required to create proper transparency of the final products and
increase the profit margin for the small-scale farmers.

3.2 Organization and Management - Finance/Human Resources

While the price of coffee keeps rising for consumers, prices are extremely low
for coffee farmers. These low prices have pushed millions of coffee-growing families
into poverty. So, the future is dark for coffee farmers in many countries, just as new
consumers throughout the world are enjoying this wonderful beverage. So, it is
important to support the coffee farmers more financially. Other then the solution
mention in the previous paragraph, one other way to solve this problem is to let coffee
companies and other Government and NGO to fund the farmers. For example, the
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment and the London School of Economics
launched a new Global Coffee Fund. Coffee companies would pay into the fund, which
would be used to finance activities that support coffee farmers and increase coffee
sustainability. These activities include providing income support to the poorest farmers
during price crises, developing affordable insurance options and disaster relief funds to
help farmers for recovering extreme climate events, increasing training, improving
infrastructure, and supporting other approaches that enable farmers to be more
profitable and resilient are necessary.

3.3 Sustainable Solution in Coffee Production Process

Not only the technological improvement or financial support and proper

management can improve the coffee production, but also the improvement of each
processes during production can bring a significant impact on achieving sustainable
production. The processes in order to produce a cup of coffee are shown below in
sequence, namely planting, harvesting and processing the coffee cherries, milling and
exporting the coffee beans, roasting and grinding the coffee. There are several effective
solutions in order to make the cultivation of coffee more sustainable.

Firstly, the first process of the coffee production, planting process can be more
sustainable by incorporating practices of the usage of pheromone boxes for the purpose
of insect repellent instead of the usage of pesticides. Also, the action of the using
the organic fertilizer instead of chemical fertilizer can be helpful in order to accomplish
the mission of the sustainability of the coffee. Through this, we are able to aid in the
protection of the coffee forest and ensure that the coffee cherries are in a great growing
condition.

Next, sustainable harvesting can be known as a way of harvesting that brings out
a constant supply of wood resources throughout the landscape, in the addition that
future timbers are not affected. The usage of coffee husk as one of the heating fuels can
be fulfilled instead of cutting down trees like eucalyptus. Plantation of the new trees in
order to replace the cut trees during the heating process is also one of the sustainable
methods in coffee farming.

Meanwhile, there exists 3 different ways in processing the coffee cherries, which
are natural, washed and also honey which have the ability to impact distinct flavor
characteristics on the beans. For the natural process, pollution-free coffee dryers, like a
solar coffee dryer, are recommended to be used to heat coffee beans. It can be said that
the washed process is the most not recommended method in processing the coffee bean
as it will lead to the production of the wastewater that must be extra treated in a
different way in order to prevent the disruption of natural balance of soil pH that will
further disrupt the farm’s ecosystem.

Besides, the reusage of the chaff is one of the sustainable methods in roasting
the coffee. Chaff is the dried skin on a coffee bean, or can be known as the husk. The
usage of chaff with soil, dirt or compost before gardening is able to ward off harmful
slugs and snails. Plus, chaff contains useful nutrients, such as Nitrogen that aids in
speeding up the growth of vegetables.

At the same time, community milling is one of the better and sustainable ways in
the milling process. This is due to the reason that there are many smallholder coffee
farmers that process the coffee cherries in their own land and this increase the water
usage that led to the problem of water contamination downstream as small farmers lack
knowledge in proper water treatment. In order to reduce the environmental impacts, the
government or related authorities are able to build a new coffee milling facility for one
long standing community of small farmers.

Last but not least, the government ought to afford renewable energy resources
for the coffee farmers, provide proper medical care and education programs to workers
to ensure the good working conditions of the workers in order to produce the high
quality of the coffee that is able to be exported to all over the world.

Figure 2: Global coffee consumption since 1965

3.4 Research and Development for Achieving Sustainability

Worldwide coffee consumption and demand is increasing every single year,

however, due to climate change and its adverse impact, the production yield of coffee
cherries is decreasing in many countries. Coffee is generally grown in the tropical
regions, like Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia etc. which also happens to be the regions where
climate change affects the most. Heavy rain, drought, coffee leaf rust (a fungus which
attacks coffee bean leaves) etc. are decreasing the yield in the past few years. As a
result, research in developing genetically modified or hybrid coffee plants which have
coffee leaf rust resistance, drought tolerance along with high yield and good quality of
green beans became more and more important to maintain a sustainable supply of coffee
in future. This kind of research has been conducted in many countries. For example,
Thailand introduced the Catimor variety, Chiang Mai 80 from line CIFC 7963 etc.
which have compact tree size, leaf rust resistance, high yield, vigor, good bean, cup
quality and drought tolerance etc. characteristics (Noppakoonwong et al. 2015). So, to
counter the adverse consequences of climate change, coffee diseases and pest in coffee
production, more aggressive research is needed to develop better genetically modified
or hybrid variants which are resistant to these challenges and also have high yield and
quality.

3. 5 Government Policies for Achieving Sustainability

The rise of environmental governance in the coffee sector in particular and the
global food sector in general has evolved since the early 1990s and developed more
rapidly in this century (Arifin 2010). One of the objectives of the International Coffee
Agreement 2007 is to encourage Members to develop a sustainable coffee sector in
economic, social and environmental terms. This is reinforced by Article 36, which
refers to the principles and objectives on sustainable development contained in Agenda
21 adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, and
those adopted at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. These principles and
objectives created by the government are the one of the coffee production sustainability
solutions.

The National Coffee Platforms are one of the keys to organizing collective
action in coffee-producing countries (Global Coffee Platform 2016). They create a
forum in which the voices of stakeholders are not just heard but listened to. And they
can be used to achieve more supportive legislative proposals for sustainable production,
acting as a springboard for collective action. Everything the National Coffee Platforms
does is aimed at bringing stakeholders together. By facilitating dialogue between the
private and public sectors and supporting each coffee-producing country to develop
tools that can help shape its own destiny, the GCP is creating real change. It is driving
towards more effective platforms, more engaged stakeholders, more meaningful
activities, and more effective extension services.

In all countries, it is critical to have the support of the government. In most

cases, this includes the ministries of both agriculture and trade, with mandates to
influence law at local and national levels. The role of the private sector is also crucial,
and challenging. In order to work towards a common vision and improve the sector for
all stakeholders (in particular the producers), local and international trade and industry
need to be on board. Their participation strengthens the ability of the National Coffee
Platforms to connect with the market and gain international recognition.

4. Conclusion

It can be difficult for a scientifically minded professional to go through a seemingly

technologically sustainable solution to support a process that considers the values,
ethics, fairness, future generations, and perspectives of opponents who advocate the
destruction of your industry. But as the Frankfurt airport example and international
GMO approvals show, technological decisions cannot be implemented in the long run if
they do not take into account the different perspectives of environmentalists, the rural
poor, and neighbors.

There are concerns that agricultural production of coffee in developing countries

will pose environmental threats in the future, as production must increase to meet
growing food demand. Intensification results in high nutrient input in the form of
mineral fertilizers and animal feed. Pressure on existing agricultural land can increase
with increasing demand for productive land and declining existing agricultural land
policy. Agricultural expansion has generally led to large-scale deforestation.
 In a moderate scenario i.e. with crop production increasing according to current
trends or trends due to simultaneous slowdown of growth demand for agricultural
products as determined by population and economic development and continued
possibility to increase land productivity. More nutrient-intensive crop production than
broader crop production showed an impressive increase, averaging to the level of NPK
now occurring in Europe.

Social learning is one description of the strategies undertaken, and a multi -party
process is one of the methods to facilitate social learning where complexity and diverse
perspectives are the rule. This group will involve people with different experiences and
expertise who may not have the same vocabulary or bias. Communication in such a
group begins with an agreement to try, a shared vision of purpose and purpose, and the
belief that working together will result in something better than if everyone worked on
their own.

As the world faces greater challenges in balancing environmental limits with

economic needs and social justice, it is not difficult to justify the importance of group
efforts to design more sustainable products and practices.

An ethical perspective can help people solve problems and weigh and compare
various options. In some cases, we lose perception of alternatives and have to challenge
ourselves to constantly test assumptions and find new considerations. We need to throw
away the old ways of knowing and thinking to see options for sustainability.
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