COFFEE AND ITS CARBON FOOTPRINT
CARBON DIOXIDE is a colourless, odourless, tasteless gas but it is found everywhere and is a causative agent of global warming.
As the authority tasked with fostering the development of the regulated industries, the Jamaica Agricultural Commodities Regulatory Authority (JACRA) recognises that it has a role to play in bringing awareness on the subject of greenhouse gas emissions,
For the coffee industry, this is a matter of importance and the authority seeks to address the subject in like manner.
WHAT IS CARBON FOOTPRINT?
The subject of carbon footprint is regarded as the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organisation, service, or product and is expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent. Such GHGs are often emitted from the combustion of carbon-containing substances, for example, the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing, manufacturing and construction processes, etc.
WHY CARBON FOOTPRINT SHOULD BE OF CONCERN TO THE COFFEE INDUSTRY?
For a long time it has been felt that the vast amount of energy utilised in coffee production, especially highquality coffees such as our Jamaica Blue Mountain® and Jamaica High Mountains® marks, is attributed to the origin side of the supply chain.
This theory seems logical, given that the process of producing a cup of coffee requires lots of energy and combustion. These processes, in addition to land clearing and cultivation, involve transportation within the territory of the producer country, processing activities and shipping to the consumer destination.
HOW DO WE ADDRESS THE CONCERNS BROUGHT ON BY GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS?
JACRA is currently taking steps through a collaborative effort to conduct a carbon mapping exercise of the Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee value chain in the first instance. The activity will be extended to the Jamaica High Mountain Coffee value chain to ensure coverage of the entire industry.
The activities will ultimately involve capacity building within the coffee value chain on how to estimate greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the development of associated knowledge management products.
The carbon mapping exercise will incorporate the identification of different sources of greenhouse gas emissions and removals in the coffee value chain and the estimation of the net emissions from these different sources. The final result of this exercise for the Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee value chain will be an estimation of the carbon intensity, or better yet, the carbon footprint of the in-country value chain for one kilogram of green coffee produced. In other words, it will be an estimation of the net greenhouse gas emissions from that portion of the value chain prior to roasting.
The outcome, which should be available somewhere around the end of the first quarter of 2022, we hope, will enable the coffee industry to have a better understanding of the sources and emission potential of each source. This will help the industry to take the necessary corrective actions to protect the environment, and reduce hunger and poverty as we play our part in arriving at more sustainable development as part of the Global Agenda for Vision 2030.