Coffee
Slavery
https://www.perlego.com/book/551957/in-the-shadow-of-slavery-pdf
Colonialism
Brazil
Brazilian coffee cultivation accompanied extensive deforestation that followed the traditional production methods of sugarcane and cotton. Over many years, Brazil had developed full-sun coffee plantations, unlike in other tropical countries such as the Philippines, where coffee cultivation was traditionally conducted in association with other tree species. By the mid-20th century, the Atlantic Rainforest was largely replaced by open coffee plantations, which ended the nutrient recycling of the forest ecosystem and led to a drastic reduction in soil fertility. Because coffee was cultivated on hills, soil erosion accelerated, leading to extensive land degradation. Nevertheless, except for a short period after the Great Depression in the 1930s, when international coffee prices fell dramatically, the Brazilian government continually encouraged farmers in the region to plant coffee and to expand new cultivation areas. This resulted in the occupation of new and more fertile areas by coffee farms and further deforestation, and some of the old coffee fields were subsequently used as pasture or for the production of staple foods.[1]
Zona de Mata
"In the 1960s, the military government started to give financial and technical support to the coffee farmers to enable them to acquire the technological package termed “the green revolution,” which included chemical fertilizer and pesticides for use in monoculture. The adoption of this package was expensive and eventually marginalized smallholders who could not afford it. Thus, the green revolution was only partially adopted due to the environmental and socioeconomic constraints of smallholder production in the region. Nevertheless, the partial adoption of the green revolution contributed to significant environmental deterioration (biodiversity loss, agrochemical pollution, erosion due to deforestation, degradation of water resources, etc.) and to the weakening of family farming as an economic enterprise (indebtedness, dependency on single crops, competition with large commercial enterprises, etc.). In general, the agroecosystems in the Zona da Mata exhibited an acute decrease in productivity due to the increasing intensity of soil use and to practices that were inadequately adapted to the environment, such as the further development of open coffee plantations on steep slopes without soil conservation measures." [2]
Starbucks
Sources
- ↑ Maria Izabel Vieira Botelho, Irene Maria Cardoso & Kei Otsuki (2016) “I made a pact with God, with nature, and with myself”: exploring deep agroecology, Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 40:2, 116-131, DOI: 10.1080/21683565.2015.1115798
- ↑ Maria Izabel Vieira Botelho, Irene Maria Cardoso & Kei Otsuki (2016) “I made a pact with God, with nature, and with myself”: exploring deep agroecology, Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 40:2, 116-131, DOI: 10.1080/21683565.2015.1115798