Peasant coffee in the Los Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve, Mexico: A critical evaluation of sustainable intensification and market integration potential

Abstract

Production of low-input, shaded coffee in the Los Tuxtlas UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (LTBR), Veracruz, Mexico, an economically marginalized but ecologically rich region, was strongly affected by the collapse in international prices and the reconfiguration of the Mexican coffee sector in the 1990s. This place-based study used qualitative methods to investigate local strategies to reactivate coffee cultivation and improve market integration. Ninety-five producers, processors and cooperative representatives were interviewed to: 1) characterize the different actors in the local coffee commodity chain; 2) explore how producers, organized or not, shape and are constrained by the local coffee sector, and 3) evaluate whether producers' land use strategies may be compatible with conservation in the LTBR. We combine the Land Sparing and Sharing framework with the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve zonation system to conceptualize how coffee plantations can be spatially integrated in protected areas and facilitate synergies between local livelihoods and conservation.Our empirical study illustrates the complexity and dynamism of the LTBR coffee sector. It highlights the resourcefulness of producers in adapting their cultivation systems, but also the narrow maneuvering room farmers have to exploit textbook synergies between conservation and fair trade and / or "certified organic" markets. In principle, coffee cultivation can be expanded and intensified without affecting remaining primary forest (Land Sparing) and contribute to maintain a diverse landscape matrix in productive agroforestry systems (Land Sharing). However, few producers have the means required to successfully achieve profitable and long-term market integration. Future research on sustainable land use management in, and around, protected areas needs to explicitly address local, sectoral and market dynamics as drivers of land use at the local level. Although these dynamics may create windows of opportunity for the biggest and best-connected producers, they exacerbate asymmetries inside peasant farming communities and weaken producers' cooperatives.

Tensions on the Road Toward Just Transitions in the Latin American Coffee Value Chain

“…Producer identities are further excluded when the GVC is arranged with value-added roasting and retailing activities located in consuming countries in the Global North, which adds complexity to the transparency and validation of environmental upgrading activities (Nab & Maslin, 2020). Therefore, efforts to build transparency and collaborative relationships between upstream and downstream actors will continue to be hampered if producers are not included in or empowered to contribute to quality, sustainability and business conversations that facilitate the elimination of colonial patterns embedded throughout the GVC (Daviron & Ponte, 2005;Fransen et al, 2019;Quiñones-Ruiz, 2020.…”

“…These concerns, in terms of both environmental and social sustainability dimensions, have been further exacerbated in recent decades by changes in contemporary power structures. Daviron and Ponte (2005) highlight the existence of a 'coffee paradox', which refers to the exaggeration of power asymmetries between producers and buyers through buyer-driven governance structures within complex and internationally fragmented GVCs (Ponte, 2019). Roasting and retail lead firms in the Global North capture and control the majority of the downstream value-adding activities, while at the same time dictating standards for upstream producing countries in the Global South that only capture around 7-10% of value through raw exports (Gereffi & Korzeniewicz, 1994;Grabs & Ponte, 2019;Pelupessy & Díaz, 2008).…”

“…The coffee paradox has incited deagrarianisation and incentivised unsustainable production methods for short-term economic gain, such as sun-grown monocultures and the intense application of chemical inputs (Daviron & Ponte, 2005). The decrease of shadegrown coffee cultivation areas has increased environmental issues such as soil infertility, biodiversity loss, deforestation, increased susceptibility to disease and pests, and water contamination (Babin, 2020;Jha et al, 2014;McCook, 2017).…”

Indonesian coffee exports and its relation to global market integration

“…Some previous researches informed that a few producers have the means required to successfully achieve profitable and long-term market integration. The opportunity for the biggest and best-connected producers is necessary to exacerbate asymmetries inside peasant smallholders farming communities and weaken producers' cooperatives (de la Vega-Leinert, Brenner, & Stoll-Kleemann, 2016). There is strong evidence of the link between the coffee price in the European coffee industry and that in Lampung farm gate as reported by Hutabarat (2006).…”

The Challenges of the Anthropocene for Biosphere Reserves

“…This threatens the integrity of primary forest patches in core zones (de la Vega-Leinert et al, 2016;Tejeda-Cruz et al, 2010). For example, pressure on agricultural land in the wake of the sharp increase in meat and dairy-product consumption, and the concomitant demand for huge swathes of terrain devoted to livestock feed cultivation (especially of soya and maize), constitute a major problem that is also detrimental to the implementation of sustainability in Biosphere Reserves worldwide (Foley et al, 2011;Garnett et al, 2013;Godfray et al, 2010).…”