The sustainability trade-offs of coffee production in Costa Rica

I examined environmental and economic sustainability of coffee production in Costa Rica by simulating nitrogen available in the soil, bird diversity, and economic return for five intensity levels of coffee production from no-input shaded plantations to high-input unshaded plantations. I developed a Fortran program that simulates these sustainability indicators using existing data adjusted for each plantation intensity. The results indicate that low intensity plantations are the most sustainable when measuring available soil nitrogen. Bird diversity is only slightly more sustainable on low intensity plantations. Profitability is highly dependent on the cost of production and the price producers receive for coffee beans. No plantation intensity is more sustainable than the others if all three measures are considered. There are irreducible trade-offs between these sustainability measures. Decreasing productivity/hectare may result in decreasing bird diversity because more land is required to maintain the same level of coffee production.