Promoting Beneficial Agriculture
Our Support for Nature-Based Climate Solutions
During the last two weeks, global leaders met in Glasgow, Scotland to review and further progress on implementing the Paris Agreement. This year, 2021, nature-based climate solutions were in the spotlight. Resilient agriculture was among the top goals for countries to prioritize in order to help stave off some of the most damaging effects of climate change.
At Blue Bottle, we recognize the opportunity to help drive sustainable agricultural practices while delivering on our commitment to be carbon neutral by 2024. Our approach today is twofold. First, we support research and work with producers contributing to climate-resilient coffee production. Second, we are proud to support Indigo Ag in its efforts to scale beneficial agriculture across the United States with the Carbon by Indigo program.
In 2020, Blue Bottle became part of a founding class of organizations committing to purchase the first registry-certified agricultural carbon credits generated at scale. These credits support US farmers converting from conventional to beneficial agricultural practices. Indigo Ag helped develop the protocol to quantify and certify these credits.
Carbon farming supports healthy soils and carbon sequestration. Regenerative practices include no-till farming, planting diverse cover crops, on-farm fertility through techniques like composting, limited use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and crop rotations.
In a changing climate, adopting such practices can be important for environmental and economic sustainability. As we have seen in coffee production, producers who compost, incorporate agroforestry, plant cover crops, and grow organically can experience a range of benefits including higher yields, improved quality, and greater climate resilience through resistance to pests, disease, and drought. The results directly impact farm profitability and the quality potential for coffees.
With the possibilities for grower, consumer, and climate, we are exploring with producers ways to advance regenerative practices they model to accelerate and scale soil carbon sequestration.
With Indigo Ag, Blue Bottle has committed to multi-year purchases of soil carbon credits as a means to affirm to US growers that there are buyers committed to helping manage the risk of transitioning to new agricultural practices. Through an early, enduring commitment, we hope to be part of the demand signal to establish a market that can scale more beneficial agriculture across the United States.
With the diverse applications of regenerative agriculture across crops and geographies, we wanted to highlight some of the growers in the Carbon by Indigo program and Blue Bottle's network delivering on the nature-based climate solutions global leaders called for in Glasgow.
Lauren Riensche & Luke Gosse. Photo courtesy of Indigo Ag.
Lauren Riensche & Luke Gosse
Jesup, Iowa
Crops: Half corn, half beans
Practices adopted:
No-till beans
Nitrogen reduction (variable rate)
Cover cropping (Hard Red Winter Wheat through spring 2022)
“We come from multi-generational family farms. And we’ve seen that every generation has its defining challenges. The boll weevil. The Dust Bowl. The farm crisis. The rise of resistant weeds. And now, sustainability. Consumers are voting for sustainability initiatives with their wallets, and we want to be poised to make the most of that opportunity. There’s no one-size-fits all solution to the endless challenges of running a farming operation, but by participating in Carbon by Indigo, we are given the space to walk before we run with the sustainable farming practices consumers will pay us top dollar to adopt. The Carbon program has been added to the mix of solutions we are testing to help keep our farm thriving for generations to come.”
"Regenerative agriculture is not about the absence of chemicals or herbicides. The question is how to create, incentivize, and reproduce microorganisms in the soil. Carbon sequestration is a consequence of microbial growth."
—Josue Morales, Founder and Creative Director, Los Volcanes Coffee
Josue Morales, founder of green coffee exporting company Los Volcanes Coffee, based in Antigua, Guatemala, has supplied Blue Bottle coffee since 2012. Josue co-developed a proprietary compost that he applies to organic farms and provides to smallholder farmers. Every ingredient in his recipe has a purpose, and Josue now grows cover crops specifically for the compost program. Alfalfa replaced manure, for example, serving as a plant-based, protein-rich stabilizer without the added nitrous oxide emissions. The recipe continues to evolve as Josue evaluates which microorganisms enhance soil health and how he can build those populations. Since first formulating the compost in 2017, Josue has seen increased resistance to disease through more resilient coffee trees. The nutrition his compost provides ensures trees are shored up against leaf rust, which struck his farm in 2019 and continues to be a threat as climate change drives more frequent outbreaks.
Beneficio La Esperanza in Antigua, Guatemala, uses Los Volcanes Coffee's compost. Photo courtesy of Los Volcanes Coffee.
Rodney Rulon. Photo courtesy of Indigo Ag.
Rodney Rulon, 5R Living Soils Farms
Arcadia, Indiana
Carbon farming practices:
No Till
Cover Crops
Diverse Rotations
“Farming's a way of life. I like the way the farm has developed and the way agriculture's developed. The technology is amazing. The conservation things that we're doing and learning, and the way we're actually able to improve the soil now and do something more sustainable and have a positive impact. It's been really interesting in the last few years, as the awareness of agriculture's ability to actually take carbon and store it in the soil and the benefits that can have for society as a whole, which is really gratifying to us.”
“By holistic and regenerative farming, we and the families we work with will be able to continue farming coffee for years to come despite the challenges of climate change and soil erosion.”
—Kristy Carlson, Founder, Long Miles Coffee Project
The Carlsons, who founded Burundi's Long Miles Coffee Project, a green coffee exporting business that has been supplying Blue Bottle coffee since 2014, place community at the center of all their work. This includes Misitu Africa, a reforestation project that draws on local government, village leaders, and conservation networks to help restore Burundi's only indigenous rainforest while establishing healthier coffee growing ecosystems that benefit producers. In an effort to address a lack of shade trees and eroding, acidic soil around the 11 hills where the smallholders who work with Long Miles grow their coffee, Misitu Africa has engaged with hundreds of farmers, employing 26 coffee scouts, eight full-time women, and one agronomist to plant more than 300,000 trees since 2017. Ultimately, Long Miles aims to support resilient coffee farms that can help mitigate the impacts of climate change.
An approximately 10-meter buffer zone of eucalyptus on the edge of the Kibira forest in northwestern Burundi protects older, slower-growing trees deeper inside the forest interior. Photo courtesy of Long Miles Coffee Project.
Generational farmer Lance Unger, center, with his daughter and father. Photo courtesy of Indigo Ag.
Lance Unger, Unger Farms
Sullivan County, Indiana
Carbon farming practices:
Reduced tillage
Cover crops
Grazing
“We're just trying to figure out how we can make our ground more productive and better. We have seen some increased production in our fields where we've had cover crops. We have seen the benefit from it. With fertilizer, we're looking to apply less to be able to grow the same number of bushels. Carbon farming makes us more economically feasible. One of these days I'll be able to move the farm on from my generation to the next generation of kids that I have.”
"We aim for the intersection of nature’s intelligent systems with scientific progress. We wish to show that it is possible to be as productive and efficient with organic, agro-ecological systems as conventional methods, while providing a healthier and more stable environment for our plants."
—Felipe Croce, Co-Founder, FAFCoffees
Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza, or FAF, is a green coffee exporting company and farm based in northeastern São Paulo state that has been supplying Blue Bottle Brazilian coffee since 2012. The farm's name, which translates to “environmental fortress,” encapsulates the company's embrace of regenerative organic agriculture. FAF seeks to steward the symbiotic relationship biodiverse and complimentary plants can foster in nature. FAF grows hardwood, leguminous, and fruit trees, providing multiple canopy layers above the coffee, which adds nutrients into the soil, preserves humidity, and maintains stable temperatures. Having left behind a monoculture past, FAF today enjoys increased yields and natural pest management.
Agro-ecology at FAF. Photo by Erico Hiller, courtesy of FAFCoffees.