At Millars wood roasted coffee we support and purchase sustainable coffees for use in our blends. Heres some education of what it means to be sustainable.

Coffee Beans are grown in over 60 tropical countries, with most of it still grown on small family owned farms, adding up to tens of millions of acres.  Coffee growing supports 25 to 100 million people around the world.  In the last 10 years, a huge surge in demand for coffee has had two consequences.  It caused a rapid worldwide expansion in production, largely of cheaper beans that flooded the market and contributed to dropping wholesale prices.  In the rush to increase production, this caused a shift from traditional, sustainable coffee growing methods (such as shade-growing) to intense monocultrus that require large inputs of fertilizers and pesticides which cause loss in biodiveristy and quickly deplete the land.

What is sustainable coffee?

1.) Certification - Because of the costs of certification, to the farmer and/or roaster, not all sustainable coffees carry a seal.  If they do, it could be one of several:

• Birdfriendly - if a coffee is certified as Bird-Friendly by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, it's grown under the most stringent environmental standards of any certification system, and it is also required to be certified organic.  If you see this seal, it is one of the best assurances that the coffee was grown with biodiversity and sustainability as their top priorities.
• Organic Certification - as labeled by the USDA and it's accredited agencies, is an important indication that many chemical inputs have been eliminated or reduced.  Generally coffee that is organic is grown under at least some shade cover (which also preserves biodiversity)
• Rainforest Alliance also has environmental criteria, although organic certification is not required, and a coffee may carry the seal and only contain 30% certified beans. Coffee companies such as Kraft (Yuban) use the rainforest alliance seal, but only purchase a tiny fraction of their supply from sustainable crops.  

2.) Country of origin - Some countries still grow much of their coffee under shade, preserving native forests and biodiversity and using few if any chemicals.  Other countries have removed shade trees or cut down areas of native forests and planted sun-tolerant coffee varieties.

Countries who shade-grow coffee:

•  Mexico
• El Salvador
• Nicaragua
• Honduras
• Bolivia
• Papua New Guinea
• Ethiopia

Countries likely to grow sun-tolerant coffee:

• Costa Rica
• Brazil
• Colombian
• Vietnam 

3.) Botanical Variety - There are two species of coffee commercially used.  Arabica Coffee and Robusta Coffee.   Arabica is high quality.  Robusta is generally lower quality, mass produced in deforested sun coffee monocultures using chemicals.  Generally, most supermarket coffees are robusta (unless "100% Arabica" is labled on the packaging)

There are many cultivators of Arabica coffee.  "Bourbon" and "Typica" are older types that require at least some shade, while "Catuai" and "Caturra" are varieties that are often grown as sun coffee.