MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors

Enjoying a Cup of Coffee? You should Thank the Birds and the Bees, Study Finds

Five takeaways:

1. A University of Vermont study shows that coffee beans are much larger and more plentiful when birds and bees collaborate to protect and pollinate coffee plants.
2. Study authors estimate that without nature’s helpers, coffee farmers would see a 25 percent decline in crop yields. That represents a loss of about $1,066 per hectare of coffee.
3. These findings hold major implications for everyone involved in the $26 billion global coffee industry– from farmers to major corporations to latte drinkers across the world.
4. This is the first research project ever to show, via real-world experiments conducted at 30 coffee farms, that birds and bees are much more beneficial for coffee yields when they work in unison; birds simultaneously perform pest control duty while bees pollinate.
5. The research showed that in harvesting situations in which birds and bees’ were present, there were greater results in fruit set, fruit weight, and fruit uniformity. All of these factors are major indicators of both coffee quality and price.

From John Anderer at Study Finds:
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