STiR coffee and tea magazine

18 STiR coffee and tea | 2024 Issue 4 (August / September) W hen trying to define anything—in this case, "Good Growth on Tea and Coffee Farms"—we bump into so many problems that we must be content accepting partial definitions, resulting in partial analyses and even more partial consensus. Because industry is at its core the business of extracting value from assets and exchanging it for more value, and because supply chains have inherent power imbalances, the existing business system is prone to exploitation—which could be defined as not returning enough value in exchange for what was taken. Done right, this could create a positive-for-all feedback cycle that can run forever, like a perpetual-motion machine. As part of the ongoing Good Growth series, we set out to analyze how business growth and social impact can co-exist at the farm level in the tea and coffee industries. Unsurprisingly, a feature-length article has nowhere near enough scope to even outline the complexity of the interactions between a farm and its immediate environment, for good or for ill, much less define what Good Growth means at a farm level in these industries. We also have the complexity that no coffee or tea farm is alike, and scale impacts business models enormously. Between the massive mechanized farms in Brazil and forest-grown tea in Southeast Asia looms a wide gulf. However, certain repeating themes occur around the world on these sites, and those are the focus of this piece. We look first at the impact that regenera- tive agriculture can have on restoring value to a farm's environmental construct, then at the social impact exerted by farms on the people who live, work, and interact with them. Lastly, we turn our attention to corporate responsibility. Regenerative Agriculture in Coffee and Tea Farms Jalinga Tea Director Ketan Patel frames the urgency of approaching cof- fee and tea farming through an environmental lens, saying, "We need to do something for the environment. If we don't change the way we do things, we will not have an industry." Climate change, global warming, deforesta- Good Growth tion, depleted soil, lack of biodiversity, carbon emissions—the list of problems continues and is interdependent. Paying attention to the soil is one of the best ways to address these challenges from a founda- tional aspect. "The main focus for us when we talk about regenerative agriculture is soil fertility," says Giacomo Celi, head of partnerships at Sucafina, adding that soil is the engine for a farmer's busi- ness activity. "We address this by enhancing the soil's organic matter, making sure that we have the proper mix of organomineral fertilizers to rebuild the missing balance." The soil doesn't just matter because it fuels the coffee and tea plants that grow in it, as well as any other crops, but because this is one of the first lines of defense against global warming. "The soil acts as a buffer for climate change since the climate heats in the three layers of canopy, plant, and soil." Biochar (burning plant waste at high tempera- tures, which causes the carbon in the biomass to become resistant to decay) comes up in more than one conversation as a multi-faceted solution for carbon sequestration. Celi adds, "While the organic matter will fluctuate during the year, the biochar will stay intact, kind of a carbon sponge." This aids in sequestering carbon, with many posi- tive outcomes. By Emily McIntyre Basha Bekele, #1 Ethiopian Cup of Excellence winner 2024, on his Bensa, Sidama farm in 2017.

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