Regenerative agriculture: coffee’s contract with the soil

Bio-diverse coffee cultivation on an AgroBeloni farm in Minas Gerais, Brazil | Photo credit: Courtesy of Fernando Beloni

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“The world will only have 60 more harvests”. The striking statement attributed to a high-ranking United Nations official made headlines around the world in 2014. Eight years later, it reverberated again as the title of a book by leading agriculture and animal welfare expert Philip Lymbery.

Concerns about soil sustainability are not exaggerated. A 2020 study of 225 soil samples around the world conducted by Dr Daniel Evans and published in the journal Environmental Research Letters showed that just under a third of conventionally managed soils have a life expectancy of less than 200 years – and 16% less than 100 years.

However, 39% of soils with conservation measures have a life expectancy of more than 10,000 years. ʻShort soil life expectancy is widespread across the world, including some of the richest nations,ʼ the study concluded, referring to countries such as China, the United States and Brazil.

Regenerative agriculture was a recurring theme during International Coffee Week in November 2023 and suggested by many experts as the key to sustainable coffee production. It has also resonated strongly with coffee farmers, retailers and researchers in the world’s largest coffee-producing country, Brazil.

However, there is still no consensus on what regenerative agriculture could mean as a globally embraced concept and a lack of definition makes it difficult to develop laws, policies and public funding for regenerative agriculture. In 2020, interdisciplinary scientist Peter Newton and his colleagues published an article in the scientific journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems seeking to understand what regenerative agriculture is, based on more than 250 scientific works and definitions from reference organisations.
 

“Healthy soil produces healthy food and feeds healthy people”
Murilo Bettarello, agronomist and founding partner at Viaverde

The discussion about defining the term raises two important points. The first is that regenerative agriculture is not opposed to conventional agriculture because it maintains some practices, such as the use of chemical inputs.

The second point is expressed in the conclusion of Newton and colleagues’ paper: “We suggest that it may be useful for individual users to use the term regenerative agriculture to define it broadly for their own purpose and context.”

This is exactly the approach that many Brazilian coffee farmers have been taking for years, whether individual producers or larger export groups – but particularly those in the specialty segment.

A sample of healthy soil resulting from regenerative agriculture practices | Photo credit: Courtesy of Fernando Beloni

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These farmers share common objectives to recover and preserve soil health, balance ecosystems, mitigate climate change and promote the resilience of agricultural systems.

“Among the basic principles of regenerative agriculture are the restoration of the soil, its life, its organic matter,” reinforces Murilo Bettarello, an agronomist and founding partner at Viaverde, a consultancy specialising in sustainability and regenerative agriculture. For him, the three regenerative agriculture priorities are soil health, local inputs and partial replacement of chemical inputs with local inputs.

“These are combined with operational efficiency and ensuring the well-being of those involved in coffee production, defines Bettarello, who also produces coffee, soy and corn on the Floresta farm in Brazil’s Alta Mogiana region. “Healthy soil produces healthy food and feeds healthy people,” he adds.

“Sustainability is bigger than regenerative agriculture alone,” says Pedro Ronca, Brazil Program Director at sustainability membership association Global Coffee Platform. According to him, many producers are forming their own approaches, which include a lower production impact, reducing the use of inputs (or using them more efficiently) while promoting organic matter and soil biodiversity.

“The production of bio-inputs for coffee farming is one of the strong applications in regenerative agriculture today,” says Ronca.

Rock powder and drones

Fernando Beloni, Managing Partner of AgroBeloni, an agricultural company with several farms in Patrocínio in Brazil’s Minas Gerais region, has also developed novel approaches to promoting soil health.

“Regenerative agriculture is the search for balance in the soil and plant, which brings long-term sustainability”, he defines.

On his farms in Alto Paranaíba, Beloni has been practising regenerative agriculture for more than 15 years. First implementing for potato crops, onions, grains, eucalyptus and oranges, he later turned his attention to coffee. “Unlike other crops, coffee is a perennial plant, and it is not necessary to replant it every year,” he says.

Beloni references one of the foundations of regenerative practices, which is to discourage the use of ploughs in the field. “Ploughing land for planting creates an imbalance, exposing micro-organisms to light and heat, killing them,” he says.

Fernando Beloni amid cover crops arranged between the rows of a coffee plantation | Photo credit: Richard Dunwoody

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Beloni also applies other practices, such as the use of cover crops, which bring multiple positive effects to the soil. “We use several families of plants, which help control pests, in addition to fixing nitrogen, increasing the diversity of root types and repopulating micro-organisms,” he says. As a further measure to boost soil fertility, instead of chemical additives, Beloni uses rock powder.

“Rock powder provides all the elements on the periodic table,” he says. Five years ago, Beloni set up a laboratory to grow fungi and bacteria that can promote soil health and with each passing year his coffee crop receives fewer chemical fertiliser and pesticide inputs.

“Over the last four years, I have reduced the use of pesticides by 50%,” he reveals. Other practices include the release of natural insect pest enemies with the help of drones. “We dropped eggs into the crop to increase the population of natural enemies of the plant’s pests”, details Beloni.

Beloni also practices composting and nitrogen complexation, a process of bacteria and organic matter into fertiliser. This produces nitrogen, a vital element for the formation of proteins in the plant, which is released into the soil gradually.

Beloni is now working to expand these practices to other farms in Brazil. Expocacer (the largest coffee growing cooperative in the Cerrado, with 701 members), of which he is president, already has 5,500 hectares of coffee certified for regenerative agriculture, supported by Italian coffee roaster illycaffè, which in 2023 began distributing the world’s first regenerative agriculture certified coffee.

The certification route

Naturally regenerating soil, reducing carbon emissions, minimising biodiversity impact and achieving balance between people and the environment. These are the objectives of the agricultural model that has been tested by illycaffè – which for decades has focused on a sustainable business model encompassing social, economic and environmental factors.
 

“Over the last four years I have reduced the use of pesticides by 50%”
Fernando Beloni, Managing Partner, AgroBeloni

These agricultural practices, many of which are still being studied, are defined according to each area as there is no single model that fits all regions, farm sizes or individual producer.

“The model brings together measures to reduce carbon emissions from the soil,” explains Aldir Teixeira, director of Experimental Agrícola do Brasil, an illycaffè-supported organisation promoting innovative sustainable agriculture in Brazil.

“This guarantees soil health and regeneration, reducing the use of chemical fertilisers and increasing organic matter, which preserves moisture, increases the microbiota and deposits carbon in the soil, Teixeira adds.
 

“Our goal is to achieve 100% de-carbonification in 2033”
Aldir Teixeira, Director of Experimental, Agrícola do Brasil

In October 2023, illycaffè launched a new retail packaged coffee range, Arabica Selection Brasile Cerrado Mineiro, grown in this Denomination of Origin with regenerative agriculture methods and certified by international regenerative agriculture initiative, Regenagri and UK-based agricultural auditor Control Union.

“Our goal is to achieve 100% de-carbonification in 2033”, says Teixeira. In addition to the illycaffé-backed project, Regenagri has certified around 25,000 hectares in Brazil across 11 individual farms, groups of farms and cooperatives.

“The assessment covers criteria ranging from water management and pollution prevention to agricultural practices that increase the proportion of organic matter in the soil, fertiliser management, livestock integration, etc.,” explains Franco Costantini, CEO of UK-based Regenagri.

“We implement a holistic and contextualised approach, in which each criterion is evaluated according to the location,” he says.

Unlike organic agriculture, regenerative agriculture does not prohibit the use of chemical inputs. “Chemical inputs cannot be completely discarded if this leads to a drop in farmer productivity and profitability,” warns Bettarello, particularly in less developed countries in Africa and Central America.

“These are countries where coffee farmers cannot even keep their children in school – this is not sustainability,” he urges.
 

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