Bird Friendly Coffee

Great for birds and for people

With widespread clear cutting for sun coffee plantations, it’s imperative to protect the tropical forest that remains and rehabilitate degraded ecosystems. Every cup of Bird Friendly coffee you drink encourages more farmers to grow in the shade, which is good for birds and for people.

First, the coffee is certified organic, which means managing a healthy soil base and applying no harmful pesticides to the coffee that could otherwise run off into streams and rivers. This helps reduce the billions of pounds of noxious chemicals injected annually into natural ecosystems that support wildlife and communities.

But this program goes a step further, requiring a variety of native shade trees throughout the coffee plantation. Through decades of research, they learned the combination of foliage cover, tree height and diversity needed to provide suitable migratory bird habitat while maintaining productive farms. Producers must be re-certified every three years to ensure they continue to meet these requirements and can truly call themselves Bird Friendly.

This results in better-tasting coffee—its rich flavor comes from beans maturing slowly in the shade. Farmers protect water sources for their communities and sequester carbon by managing the forest-like system, which also provides a host of other products like cacao and spices. And the premium prices they fetch for Bird Friendly coffee supports their families and local economies.

What makes it different? Several important things.

Supermarket shelves are full of coffee touting their environmental credentials. What makes Bird Friendly coffee different? Several things set Bird Friendly coffees apart from other coffees making environmental claims. First and foremost is a history of and ongoing commitment to criteria based on science. The standards come directly out of ornithological fieldwork conducted by SMBC researchers. Current and future studies by their staff, post-docs and students will continue to gather information that will deepen understanding of the connections between shade coffee and birds and other wildlife—as well as farmers’ livelihoods.

Bird Friendly certification also insists on organic certification as a pre-requisite. It is mandatory. Moreover (and obviously) shade inspection and certification are mandatory for Bird Friendly. And the inspections and certifications are done by agencies accredited by the USDA’s National Organic Program, assuring consumers of quality control. Once certified, Bird Friendly farms are monitored on a regular basis by these third parties.

Finally, there is the question of product purity. Some certification programs allow a small percentage of non-certified product in their bag, recognizing the difficulty of controlling the process at the farm level. Other so-called sustainable coffee programs permit product dilution, allowing as little as 30 percent to meet their standards and still carry their certification label. Some shade-grown programs don’t require shade trees meet a minimum height—a factor studies proved is critical to quality habitat for neotropical migrants and resident birds.

SMBC’s Bird Friendly certification is the only one that is 100 percent guaranteed organic and shade-grown, and translates to the healthiest farms.

Now Available for Purchase at Backyard Birds

Birds & Beans® Coffee is one of the first coffee companies to take up the ‘Bird Friendly®’ certification and Backyard Birds is helping make it easy for everyone to drink Bird Friendly coffee – a real way to support sustainability.