COFFEE PRICE TAG

Your favorite cafe may ask $1.25 for a cup of coffee, but there are many hidden costs to this daily ritual.

COFFEE COST TAG

Mileage

4,000 miles. Your morning jolt of energy consumes an incredible amount of energy itself during its journey from the tropics to your cup.

Genetic diversity

Coffee plantations have significantly reduced winter habitat for many migratory songbird species.

Social cost

Due to economic concentration and corporate control, profit from coffee sales goes mainly to processors and distributors of coffee, not growers. Non-organic coffee relies on regular applications of pesticides, putting coffee growers at risk.

Environmental impact

A two cup a day drinker uses 10% of a coffee tree’s annual production. Consumption of coffee world-wide has caused massive clearing of natural tropical forests such as “cloud forests”—among the world’s most endangered ecosystems. Transporting, roasting and packaging coffee uses large amounts of non-renewable energy.

What can you do?

Buy organic, shade-grown coffee that helps protect migratory songbird habitat and eliminates the use of toxic pesticides.  Ask your grocer to stock “fair trade” coffee that puts profits into the hands of small farmers rather than large corporations. If you drink lots of coffee, you might also try to cut back to 1 or 2 cups a day.

Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems
College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, UW-Madison
1450 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
(608) 262-5200
www.wisc.edu/cias/

copyright 2000, UW Board of Regents