Coffee is good for migratory songbirds! No, they don't need it to stay awake on all-night migration flights, but they do need coffee plantations when they get to the tropics for the winter.

Throughout Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean Islands, and northern South America (the destinations of most wintering songbirds), there are virtually no forests still standing in the mid-elevations (roughly 500 to 1500 meters), because these regions have all been converted to permanent cropland. However, many birds have found a viable replacement in "traditional" or "shade" coffee and cacao plantations. Grown in the time-honored manner, coffee bushes are cultivated under the forest overstory, using basic principles of agroforestry. This involves planting a mixture of nitrogen-fixing trees with up to 40 other useful species to provide shade, as well as firewood and fruit for household and commercial use. Shade trees protect coffee and cacao bushes from rain and sun, help maintain soil quality, counteract erosion, and provide natural mulch, which reduces the need for chemical fertilizers and herbicides.

As far as the birds are concerned, coffee plantations are basically modified forests. The flowers and fruits of the shade trees attract omnivorous species like Tennessee Warblers and Orchard Orioles. (Although most neotropical migrants feed primarily on insects in breeding season, some species readily turn to fruits and flowers while wintering in the tropics--and there are insects there too of course). Researchers have found a surprising biodiversity of birds, bats, butterflies, ants, amphibians, and orchids in shade coffee plantations. Wintering migrants are joined by resident parrots, tinamous, trogons, toucans, and woodcreepers.

Coffee has been called a "democratic crop." While there are vast plantations worked by tenant farmers for absentee landowners, most coffee is still grown by families on small farms. Because of its high profitability per unit compared to raising corn or beef, coffee growing has been looked to as a way for small landowners to earn cash with relatively little investment. Traditional practices allow farmers to avoid dependence on expensive chemical applications, protecting them and their families from the harmful effects of pesticide exposure and fertilizer run-off in drinking water.

Until recently, nearly all commercial production of coffee was managed under a canopy of shade trees, but debt-strapped nations seeking to boost export commodities have undertaken a deliberate campaign to modernize growing practices away from traditional "shade" coffee to the new "sun" or "technified" coffee. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has also encouraged this trend. Sun coffee plantations produce higher yields, at a serious social and environmental price. They require large applications of expensive chemicals, and the plants are more susceptible to disease and need to be replaced more often. Small farmers can't afford the increased costs. The removal of shade trees eliminates the grower's fuel wood, timber and fruit crops that often serve as insurance for times when the coffee crop fails. Some farmers, unable to support themselves, have been forced to see their land for cattle pasture, or in some regions, to convert to growing coca (the raw material for cocaine).

A casualty of the conversion to "sun" coffee is biodiversity. Studies in Colombia and Mexico have found 94-97% fewer bird species in "sun" than "shade" coffee plantations. The last refuge of wintering neotropical migrants, not to mention year-round resident wildlife, is gradually disappearing. With so much tropical forest already eliminated, the birds have nowhere else to go.

What are coffee drinking bird lovers to do? As consumers of one-third (that's one-third!) of the world's coffee, Americans have a lot of influence. Until recently, coffee importers, roasters, and retailers haven't had a reason to track whether their product is grown in sun or shade, but due to consumer awareness of the impact of technified coffee on the environment, people are starting to ask for shade coffee. By buying coffee that is grown in the shade, we help keep shade coffee economically viable and preserve increasingly scarce habitat for migratory birds.