Caffeine Boost: Researchers Propose Coffee Pulp to Speed Up Forest Recovery

According to a new study, coffee pulp, the waste product from the production of coffee, can be used to boost tropical forest recovery for post-agricultural land.

A team of researchers from ETH-Zurich in Switzerland and the University of Hawai'i tested the theory by spreading thirty dump truck loads of coffee pulp on a degraded land measuring 35 meters by 40 meters in Costa Rica, using a similar-sized area of similar land but without the coffee pulp as the control setup. They published the results of their study in an article titled "Coffee pulp accelerates early tropical forest succession on old fields," appearing in the journal British Ecological Society, March 28.

Jumpstarting Forest Recovery with Caffeine

Coffee pulp, or coffee husk, is the main byproduct of the coffee agro-industry and is often used as an ingredient for feeds after processing. In the study, researchers discovered that the degraded land dumped with coffee pulp recovered much faster compared to the one without the caffeine boost.

"The results were dramatic," shares lead author Dr. Rebecca Cole from the University of Hawaii in a feature from the British Ecological Society. She notes how the land filled with coffee pulp grew into a small forest in just two years' time, while the control setup remained "dominated by non-native pasture grasses."

After the two-year period of observation, the area with the coffee pulp had about 80 percent canopy cover compared to only 20 percent in the coffee-less land. Additionally, the canopy in the coffee-boosted land was also four times taller compared to the control land.

Furthermore, adding a half-meter thick layer of coffee pulp over the previously-degraded land helped eliminate invasive grasses that filled the land. These pasture grasses often impede forest development, with their removal signaling the recolonization of native and pioneer tree species - which arrives at the land through wind and animal seed dispersal methods - at an accelerated pace.

Agricultural By-Products to Restore Agricultural Lands

Another observation noted by the researchers is that nutrient levels - carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and more - were "significantly elevated" in the coffee pulp land. This essentially shows the potential of this solution for reinvigorating former tropical agricultural lands, which are often highly degraded and left with poor soil quality that would otherwise take decades to recover.

"This case study suggests that agricultural by-products can be used to speed up forest recovery on degraded tropical lands," Cole added. "In situations where processing these by-products incurs a cost to agricultural industries, using them for restoration to meet global reforestation objectives can represent a 'win-win' scenario."

Coffee pulp steps up to be a cost-effective and easily-accessible forest restoration strategy since it is a widely available waste product, not to mention its high nutritional content. Strategies with quick and significant results, such as those observed in this study, could be the next best option to attain loft goals of large-scale forest restoration, such as those outlined in the 2015 Paris Accord - a global environmental agreement signed by 195 different nations around the world.

Specifically, the lands used in the study are from the Coto Brus county, located in the southern part of Costa Rica at a former coffee farm currently undergoing forest recovery strategies.

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