STEP #17

Buy Fair Trade Coffee

Who would have thought that buying a cup of organic decaf could help cut oil use? Kicking your oil addiction can start with some fair trade, shade-grown organic decaffeinated java. Why, you ask?

It’s chemicals, again. Many companies decaffeinate their coffee with the notorious petrochemical methylene chloride, which can cause heart attacks on inhalation. In small repeated doses, it causes cancer. Who needs it? You don’t need to give up your quest for purity, though.

Better methods of decaffeination include carbon dioxide and water processing, both of which forgo the use of this dangerous petroleum solvent. Look for decaf brands that specify these methods.

And go for organic and fair trade too. “For the last 35 years, the trend away from the traditional shade-grown coffee farms to sun farms has decimated forests,” says supermarket guru Phil Lempert. “Of the 6 million acres of coffee farms today, some 3.6 million have been stripped of shade trees,” he says. We have, in particular, helped to eliminate bird species and increased the presence of devastating insects and fungi attacking the coffee plant, thereby requiring tons of toxic petroleum-based pesticides to offset losses of up to 35 percent of the crop.

“Growing organic coffee isn’t only about not using chemical pesticides and fertilizers,” says Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (the nation’s leader in sourcing fair trade coffee) on their website, www.greenmountaincoffee.com

“It’s really about being in tune with the environment, and working with the ecosystem, rather than against it. Organic farmers are reaching back to their traditions: replanting trees to grow coffee under natural shade canopies, enriching the soil with natural compost…and along the way they’re reaping the benefits of a rich and diverse flora and fauna, and greatly improved water quality.”

The Audubon Society says that coffee forests serve to cool the earth by the evaporation and transportation and recycling of millions of gallons of water, favoring cloud formation and abundant rainfall. Interrupt this natural flow and you interrupt the life of the land and the trees and the weather patterns of the earth.

The nitrogen-fixing shade trees provide habitat for birds and butterflies that, in turn, provide natural insect control with their constant foraging, all without fungicides and pesticides.

Organic shade-grown coffee plantations now often are the last remaining sources of canopy-rich rainforests for migratory birds whose presence is a marker for a healthy ecosystem.

“Shade-grown coffee plantations play a key role in the conservation of migratory birds that have found a sanctuary in their forest-like environment,” says the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

Here’s what you can do:

Demand organic coffee. If your favorite coffee place doesn’t have it, find one that does.

By the end of 2008, 50 percent of Caribou Coffee Company’s coffees were Rainforest Alliance certified! (Visit them at www.cariboucoffee.com.)

One simple thing to do is to participate in their Bird Friendly® coffee program from the Smithsonian, which supports 32 farms in seven countries—Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela—that produce “Bird Friendly” certified coffee beans to sell to roasters in the United States and Canada.

The more than 2,372 growers on these farms produce more than 7,777,308 pounds of coffee on more than 7,236 hectares of shaded farmland.

Fighting the world’s oil addiction with your first cup of coffee in the morning is a bright way to wake up!