Organic is Sustainable

… but is it really? Two words that are too broad, even for this topic. This statement had me thinking so deeply, that I wanted to protest. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I’m not putting up a fight when there’s arrogance involved. A point can’t come across when organic is seen like a religion.

We would have to narrow this down. Put this in coffee farming context. I, for one is a big advocate for sustainability. It has been 5 years since I’ve decided to make conscious decisions with waste. Years after that, I found interest in immersing myself into the coffee industry, thus putting these two concepts together. A sustainable coffee business.

With a shallow standard for my thoughts, I’ve been accumulating ideas on how to reduce waste. Learning the barista/consumer side of coffee helped me give some more insight on how to make realistic decisions. To be exact, I have a list of these in this blog too! However, as I got into coffee farming, I’ve seen a bigger picture on what sustainability really is.

For me, sustainability is to make use of resources efficiently. Resources including environment, labor, time & money. Decisions on how a business can sustain itself with what they have. There are only factors that we can control and only so much that we can’t. The question is, how can we work our way around it?

As we know, the producer’s side of coffee can be the most difficult, unacknowledged and misjudged community of the coffee chain. Producers have to deal with the environment, & has been directly affected by climate change. In addition to these, more diseases such as coffee leaf rust, & coffee bore beetle have been affecting the crop. The current to post pandemic stage caused shortage of people all over the world. People have been more lazy! I can’t blame them though. Why work in a labor intensive work environment such as a farm who is tight on budget, when Target offers a competitive pay? I currently live in Kona. A coffee region in Hawaii with the highest cost of living, & labor laws that bring coffee prices up to one of the highest range that is even beyond my budget. And to top it off, you have consumers who know little about the process and demands “Organic”.

Organic is a label that’s been more active in this current time. We see it in groceries everywhere (maybe excluding Walmart). It matters to those who are more conscious with what they eat and where it is sourced. GMOs have been around because there’s so much demand, not much supply, and chemicals are introduced. It can get ridiculous how this can be abused by large scale companies too. For those who go against this, we also have those people who abuse the alternative of these chemically produced products by putting a label. Resulting to the term “Organic” becoming a marketing tool.

In the coffee farm, we spray weed killers around the tree, put fertilizer, spray for fire ants, CBB (coffee bore beetle) and CLR (coffee leaf rust). We spray around the tree to prevent weeds and vines from growing on the tree. With limited labor, weed-whacking around trees on a 32 acre farm is putting the burden on your people. Not spraying on leaves will cause disease on your trees, defective crop, and discomfort to the pickers. Fire ants burn like hell.

With some of these factors, how do we expect to go organic and have products to sell? How can organic be sustainable when farmers lose their farms because the trees haven’t been treated and sprayed? How can organic be sustainable when you expect people to do a labor intensive job while not paying them enough? Can you sustain a farm without having workers? Can you even keep the trees and produce crop to sell when diseases have taken over?

I speak because I empathize. I consume coffee, AND I work in coffee. I am a consumer, AND a producer. Understanding both aspects brings me to wonder why there are so many ignorant people. The sad thing is that some of those who speak for coffee are to blame. Bloggers, youtubers, baristas, and in my case, coffee farm tour guides too. Why do we lie about our product? Are we really knowledgable enough to promote “Organic”? Do we know what’s the cost of using this marketing tool and putting this type of pressure to producers, who is the heart of this chain? We have no product without these people.

Misinformation will only cause division. I’d rather educate than pretend. Let’s help each other. We can start by being honest to those who buy our product. There is no shame with speaking about the problems that we encounter. We can educate on how and why decisions like these must be made.

Now, I’m not saying that we should promote the use of chemicals. I do believe that there is a responsible way of dealing with it. However, if there are ways & suggestions to have little to no harm in the environment, we should also consider. Till then, I hope we include the people who work in the industry when we speak of organic and sustainability, because right now, I can’t say that “organic” can sustain the livelihood of our farmers.

Additional information: The farm that I work at only use chemicals that are approved for coffee farming.