Achieving Sustainable Cultivation of Coffee

The book is broken down into two parts: Plant pysiology and breeding and Quality traits. Part 1 has nine chapters and Part 2 has eight, so they each get roughly equal treatment. Each chapter is written by a different author.

There is a section titled “Where to look for further information” at the end of each chapter, allowing for further exploration of a given topic—something I greatly appreciate!

See also: Coffee Sustainability

Sustainable coffee faces two primary challanges, according to the book; a reliance on too small of a gene pool in cultivated trees and an increasing demand for quality (the success of Specialty Coffee!).

It is important to note (and they do in the book on several occasions) that our knowledge and understanding of coffee is still lacking when compared to other agrigultural products, such as wine. We are certainly on the leading edge of that change, making it a very interesting time to be in coffee, for sure.

The book is touted as “the most up-to-date synthesis on major advances in coffee science, written by a large panel of researchers involved in international coffee research projects, in collaboration with the coffee industry worldwide¹.”

I’ve read several chapters already and am bouncing around, reading different chapters that catch my eye, rather than reading it cover-to-cover. So far I’ve found this book will be a great resource to have and one I will reference often.

^{1. Emeritus Professor Andre Charrier, as quoted in the synopsis↩}