Coffee Board plans for eco-friendly practises

Coffee Board of India is planning to extend the eco-friendly practises followed in the traditional growing regions of the country to non-traditional areas in its bid to conserve the biodiversity in the country.

“The significance of the biodiversity summit is to increase awareness among planters to conserve biodiversity in the coffee-growing regions of the country,” Jawaid Akhtar, chairman of Coffee Board of India, said on the sidelines of a workshop on ‘Biodiversity and Sustainable Coffee Farming in India’.

He also said most plantation regions of the country had preserved biodiversity and the board would like to extend the same to the non-traditional areas. Coffee plantations play an important role in preserving the rich biodiversity of flora, fauna, reptiles, mammals and birds that facilitate preserving ecological balance in nature. In this respect, coffee growing in the Western and Eastern Ghats are very useful for protecting environmental health and is an initiator of the forest preservation.

“Our coffee plantations can show the way to world coffee growers regarding the preservation of biodiversity. So, we should be proactive to show the way to the world coffee industry regarding this matter,” he said.

According to a research paper, coffee-growing regions of the Western Ghats area constitute over 312 bird species which interact with coffee plants as the plantations serve as mini-biological reserve for these bird species. As a whole, there are around 16 endemics and 30 endangered bird species in the Western Ghats.

However, nuclear stations, global warming, coffee curing centres, indiscriminate use of pesticides, encroachments into and destruction of wildlife habitats endanger biodiversity, the report noted. Not only the Coffee Board, but also organisations like the CAFNET is trying to preserve the ecological balance in the plantation regions. CAFNET, an international initiative to promote biodiversity in the coffee growing regions, are presently conducting study in Kodagu area of Karnataka. Studies are in progress in 118 estates and 38 villages representing small, medium and large farmers to document the traditional ecological knowledge.

“Our country is endowed with a rich biodiversity in the coffee-growing regions. We have to conserve it in order to produce ‘eco-friendly coffee’ from our plantations,” an official of the Coffee Board said.