Coffee growing areas

Coffee plants are cultivated in more than 80 countries around the world, with 70% being produced by smallholder farmers (De Los Santos-Briones Hemfindez-Sotomayor, 2006). More than lOOmillion people in the coffee-growing areas worldwide derive their income directly or indirectly from coffee production (Mishra Slater, 2012). Brazil is the largest producer and exporter of C. arabica (ABIC, 2010 Silva et al., 2013), followed by Colombia, Paraguay, Venezuela, Indonesia, Ethiopia, India and Mexico. Coffee plantations eover about 10.6 million ha of land, mostly in the tropics (Clay, 2004), and the coffee trade has an annual turnover of close to 10 billion US, making it the second most important commodity traded in the world next to petroleum (Silva et al., 2013). 

The main growing areas of coffee and cocoa shifted from their native lands as history moved on. Today, most coffee is grown in central and South America, whereas cocoa is mainly farmed in Western Africa (Ivory Coast alone is the origin of one third of all the cocoa on Earth). The annual world production is about 7.8 milhon t for coffee, and 4.1 million t for cocoa. Coffee trade is worth 7 billion a year, which ranks as number four after coal, oil and cereal grains. 

Weeds vary from low and succulent broad-leaved weeds that grow best in wet shady areas and the hardier coarse types that are found in drier, more exposed soils, to vines that clamber over coffee trees and smother them with injurious growth, to useless woody bushes that come up between the coffee trees, and tough grasses that compete for both moisture and soil nutrients. In Kenya and Brazil it is essential... 

Coffee was also one of the first agricultural products to enjoy the use of third-party certification for international trade Coffee, because of its popularity and its important role in the rural areas of countries where it is grown, can serve as a spearhead for the organic production and certification of other crops. Coffee also has a positive environmental potential since it is an evergreen that can grow as part of an integrated forest canopy and responds well to eco-friendly cultivation. 

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