Biodiverse coffee plantations provide co-benefits without compromising yield

Abstract

Introduction: Coffee is a ubiquitous global commodity that is cultivated with a wide range of practices, each with different, yet poorly understood trade-offs between management intensity, yield, and biodiversity. For example, monocultures prioritise coffee production, but do not necessarily deliver the highest coffee yields, nor the greatest profits. Understanding these trade-offs is key to informing sustainable coffee production. Methods: We synthesized the literature on these relationships, finding that agroforestry farming systems support greater biodiversity while often producing coffee yields that are comparable to monoculture systems. Results: Over half of studies (57%) failed to dete..