Today I have decided to embark on a journey across the Atlantic Ocean to a land mass that is known as the lungs of the earth. This land mass has abundant rainforest, biodiversity, water systems and indigenous communities. All of these elements enrich this earths field of consciousness and experience in innumerable ways. I feel Brazil needs a place on our coffee map of the world since it is responsible for the production of coffee on a level greater than any place on our globe!

Brazil grows, nourishes, raises and fruits the most coffee beans of any other region in the world.

Not surprisingly Brazil’s fertility and abundance has mothered food production for many parts of the world including, but not limited to, sugar cane, soy and animal farming. This agriculture today feeds a growing percentage of the world’s population. These farming practices can be managed in a way that supports the fertility and abundance of these tropical regions instead of stripping it of all its resources, which unfortunately tends to be the rule vs the exception. I hope to bring a touchstone of awareness into our view by covering today’s motherland of Brazil. My intent is to instill curiosity in the reader that births a sense of responsibility and connection to the foods you consume and your own personal ecosystems, as these principles are not limited to one region of the world.

Soil Health And Coffee

Brazil, the largest producer of coffee, including Robusta and Arabica species. These coffee plant growing practices have very penetrating effects on soil health. Soil is the substrate absolutely essential for any harvest to succeed. Tropical soils require very attuned and specialized treatment. This humid, pumice, nutrient rich environment full of microbiological creatures is not to be likened to growing in arid regions or farm lands of the midwest, for example. The soil here has accumulated due to dead plant matter falling to the earth and decomposing on the earth floor with other decaying matter. This naturally extrapolates an environment for all the elements that play the key roles in soil health: including insects, micro organisms (important soil digesters and distributors of nutrition to plant life), fungi and mycorrhiza, mammals, lizards and human inhabitants. This is a web of life, it should never be reduced to western practices of soil management that primarily focus on phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen nutrition in soils.

Coffee Ceremony

Intrinsically interconnected

So, why am I bringing all of this up when we speak of coffee ceremony? I will tell you why, because the ceremony of the cycles of nature are longer lived than any human coffee ceremony that has ensued on earth. The ceremonies of the soil, the trees, the plants, the animals, the micro organisms, fungus, waters, weather patterns and the like… they live in ceremony with each other every day, every hour, every generation. Those ceremonies are what have brought us this soil rich in nutrients that provide our morning cup of coffee around the world.

As consumers we have the power and the decisions through our actions of purchase to not support growers who are “strip mining” the soils on earth. By “strip mining” this soil it destroys entire communities of inhabitants (including humans). These aggressive growers just move onto the next fertile rich soil area once the last one has been depleted. One farm at a time, globally, they consume these beautiful jungles and lung beds of our sacred life giving earth. Shade grown coffee practices are not being embraced in an area where they would flourish. Due to these harsh farming practices conventional coffee production is responsible for the leading use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers in the world!

These rainforests have built a soil structure over years of collaborative co-habitation that fits that region and its climate zones. A farmer can come in, cut the trees down and lay in a crop that will thrive off of this nutrient rich profile, no doubt. The problem is that after a mere few years of changing the ecosystem relationships that soil becomes depleted and essentially dies without the aid of its surrounding allies of the forest. The creatures of the forest and soil also die off which creates these deserts in the middle of what was a thriving jungle. This jungle produces much of our earth’s oxygen, sequesters greenhouse gasses, like CO2, and has been a home for hundreds of thousands of years to an un-numbered amount of species, ancestral lineages and local food sources. It’s a perfect balance that has been orchestrated through time and evolution.

Shade Grown Coffee, A Growing Solution

As we have discussed above and what this diagram portrays, shade grown coffee is a healthy solution to being able to grow coffee and support the soils and local habitats. I have a blog exclusively dedicated to shade grown coffee for those that want a deeper understanding of how it works. There are many ways we can support environments ecologically and ethically through our consumer decisions. In a world that can at times feel overwhelming with industrial influence and mindless regard to life, you do have choice with your actions every day. It is the activism you ignite every day with your ethical principles and mindfulness that can change a mindless culture. You get to be a collaborative piece of healing for generations to come. You are part of the solution, awakening with a cup of coffee that awakens!

Thank you for considering being part of the global solution

ALL of our coffee at Holy Moses is shade grown