Regenerative Agriculture Comes to the Coffee Industry
According to Statistica, coffee producers can expect an annual growth rate of 10.52% into 2028, with the United States generating the highest revenue globally in 2024 (USD $11.4m)1. At the same time, in line with a global consumer trend towards healthier ingredients and cleaner labels, coffee drinkers are demanding more sustainable products from ethically sourced beans.
Ethically sourced means partnering with companies and producers actively supporting farmers and the environment. Labels include “direct trade” and “fair trade,” indicating producers and buyers who strive to enhance and uphold farmer living conditions and increase sustainability. Part of these efforts is embracing regenerative agriculture.
What Is Regenerative Agriculture?
Regenerative agriculture heralds a return to earlier, often ancient, farming techniques, a move away from industrial cultivation trends. It’s a philosophy, a growing movement around building climate-resilient farming communities and maintaining healthy soil.
The mindset warrants considering how all agricultural aspects are connected, including growing, enhancing, exchanging, distributing, and consuming the product. Interconnections are evaluated as part of a “web” rather than using a linear model.
The approach focuses on nourishing the earth and people. Individual practices can vary across growers and regions but emphasize consistent holistic principles within a dynamic system. The aim is to regenerate the soil, restore the ecosystem’s health, and boost the land, water, and climate. It also considers worker well-being and addresses inequality.
The Benefits of Regenerative Agriculture
Advantages are ecological, personal, social, and economic. They include:
- Ecological: The practice helps improve soil fertility and health, yield healthier, larger crops, vibrant microbial presence, and better soil test results. It also helps boost biodiversity, reduces water pollution and soil erosion, and improves soil water-holding capacity.
- Economic: Reduced use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and antibiotics saves money, offering diversified revenue streams and increased financial security, rural economic development promotion, and more nutritional food choices.
- Community: The philosophy encourages growing information dissemination and exchange networks, a more resilient community, and robust consumer-food relationships.
- Health: After a return to regenerative practices, many producers report increased satisfaction and joy in their work, with improved farmer, farmworker, and community physical well-being thanks to reduced toxin exposure.
Regenerative techniques are diverse. They can include:
- Cover cropping – keeping living roots in the soil after harvesting primary crops
- Holistic grazing using intensive rotational grazing
- Avoiding till farming to leave the soil (and it’s valuable inhabitants) intact
- Avoiding factory farming
- Composting, including super-compost “inoculants.”
- Reducing or avoiding fossil fuel-based additives
- Embracing agroforestry – integrating shrubs and trees into crop and animal systems
- Incorporating conservation buffers like hedgerows
Why Do We Need Regenerative Agriculture in the Coffee Growing Industry?
According to idhsustainabletrade.com, “The future of coffee farming is regenerative.2”With the global cost of living crises and climate change threatening current coffee growing regions, a step away from accepted practices is essential. Regenerative farming is the leading solution to building, regenerating, developing healthier soil systems, and boosting income resilience.
The approach is working, with Illy Caffè and the Cerrado Coffee Growers Federation recently launching the world’s first authentically sustainable coffee bean: Arabica Selection Brasile Cerrado Mineiro. The grains enjoy regenerative certification from Regenagri, a British Control Union-accredited global association dedicated to soil preservation and health.
What Does Regenerative Certification Require?
Certifications provide pack labels, ensuring a product has been produced using practices that enhance biodiversity, isolate carbon, and regenerate the soil. Each has its own set of standards and requirements committed to regenerative agriculture.
Requirements differ across farming types. However, the focus is on “whole farm” programs. Growers must demonstrate a viable and compliant “regenerative plan” and practices. These include high-welfare animal keeping and treatment and crops produced according to Certified Regenerative standards, verified via regular audits.
Take, for example, Regenagri-certified Arabica Selection Basile Cerrado Mineiro. Producers had to prove an increase in their soil’s organic matter, enhanced biodiversity, ecosystem rebalancing, and increased carbon, water, nutrient cycles, and atmospheric CO2 sequestration.
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1 https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/hot-drinks/coffee/south-africa
2 https://www.idhsustainabletrade.com/news/the-future-of-coffee-farming-is-regenerative/