Subsidient: Thomas Arevalo / Utrecht University
Subsidy: S181.63
Currently the majority of Colombian coffee comes from monocultures. These systems are potentially trading short-term increase in yield for long-term losses in ecosystem services, threatening sustainable long-term coffee production. Coffee agroforestry is thought to be a possible solution but a mayor drawback is the assumption that its economic performance is lower than that of monoculture systems.
This study investigated the effects of the implementation of coffee agroforestry on ecologic and economic performance in comparison to monoculture cultivation. Therefore the economic performance, coffee productivity and the ecosystem services: habitat provisioning, carbon sequestration and soil enrichment were investigated at 20 plantations.
The results suggests that agroforestry has a more complex vegetation structure, beneficially affecting habitat provisioning, as well as a higher carbon stock while coffee production was found to be higher for monoculture systems. No difference was found for soil enrichment but nutrient contents were too high for optimal coffee production, possibly indicating excessive fertilizer use. For economic performance expenses were significantly higher for monoculture systems while income was not found to be significantly different.
As the findings suggest increased ecologic performance with an equal economic performance for agroforestry, agroforestry could be an important tool to achieve a sustainable agricultural future.
