Nonprofit Espresso Watch and CATIE have launched an open-access database devoted to scientific literature on shade-grown espresso.
BY EMILY JOY MENESES
ONLINE EDITOR
Featured picture courtesy of Helena Espresso Vietnam
On January 19, 2026, nonprofit Espresso Watch and the Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) formally launched the Espresso Agroforestry E-Library, a brand new open-access on-line useful resource devoted to scientific literature about shade-grown espresso, a sort of agroforestry.
The platform is the first-ever complete database to consolidate world analysis on espresso agroforestry right into a single, accessible location, containing many years of analysis from a number of international locations and in a number of languages.
The Significance of Agroforestry
Agroforestry, the combination of shade bushes and diversified crops into espresso farms and surrounding landscapes, is well known as a essential technique for addressing a number of the espresso sector’s most urgent challenges.
Scientific analysis has proven that shade-grown espresso techniques can improve local weather resilience, contribute to carbon sequestration, preserve biodiversity, and enhance farmer livelihoods by means of revenue diversification and meals safety.
Regardless of rising proof to assist agroforestry as a solution to the espresso business’s most urgent points, completely different areas and analysis establishments are sometimes divided on greatest agroforestry practices, limiting sensible utility—and the Espresso Agroforestry E-Library hopes to bridge this divide.
From Fragmented Analysis to Open Entry
The Espresso Agroforestry E-Library brings collectively peer-reviewed research, technical stories, and manuals right into a centralized, searchable database designed for farmers, corporations, NGOs, policymakers, and researchers alike. Its open-access format ensures that essential scientific findings can be found to stakeholders throughout the espresso worth chain, from these engaged in farm-level decision-making to others targeted on worldwide coverage growth.
“This e-library is a game-changer for the espresso sector,” Etelle Higonnet, Director of Espresso Watch, shared in a press launch. “By making the science accessible, we will speed up the transition to espresso landscapes which can be shade-grown, climate-resilient, and farmer-centered.”
What the E-Library Covers
The Espresso Agroforestry E-Library encompasses a broad vary of subjects related to the design and administration of agroforestry techniques. Key areas embrace local weather change adaptation and mitigation, carbon storage, biodiversity outcomes, soil well being, water conservation, and soil moisture administration.
The web useful resource additionally addresses urgent social points inside the business, corresponding to farmer revenue diversification and making certain meals safety inside producing communities.
Adapting to a Altering Local weather
Eduardo Somarriba of CATIE, who oversaw the event of the Espresso Agroforestry E-Library, emphasizes the database’s significance in making certain a sustainable future for the business. “Anybody who needs to develop, promote, purchase, or drink sustainable espresso ought to learn the library,” he says.
Eduardo additionally shares an alarming fact and the way the database is working to handle it: “Scientists say half of world espresso will vanish by 2050 if we don’t make main strides in direction of climate-proofing our espresso. If we need to save espresso from local weather change, agroforestry is an important resolution, and this E-Library explains all the pieces it’s good to learn about it.”
A Residing Useful resource
Most significantly, the Espresso Agroforestry E-Library is designed to be a “residing useful resource,” with new analysis added over time, making certain the database continues to mirror advances in each analysis and on-the-ground work.
As the worldwide espresso neighborhood seeks responses to local weather and financial pressures, this new platform offers a robust start line for making certain a extra sustainable business by means of advancing shade-grown espresso techniques worldwide.
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