Why Coffee and Why Brazil
To guarantee a serious, effective and reliable certification, we decided to prioritize the certification of coffee crops for the time being. We chose coffee as our immediate focus because, in addition to harming the growth of soil’s microorganisms, damaging the development of crops and causing water stress, the excessive use of chloride poses an even bigger threat to coffee crops.
Coffee in general requires a greater amount of potassium input than other crops, about 300 kg/ha of K2O. Potassium chloride has the highest rates of potassium (K) in the market (about 52% K and 48% Cl), being the most widely used source of potassium. Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world, and alone was responsible for 35% of the world’s coffee production in 2019. This value increases to 47% when considering only the production of arabica coffee.
According to the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) the country had a productive area of 1.88 million hectares in 2020, which means that approximately 942,000 tons of KCl are used in coffee crops in Brazil. When we think in terms of Cl, we have 451,200 tons, the equivalent of 18 thousand trucks of Cl being dumped on the ground every year. Lined up, these trucks would measure up to 201 miles, which corresponds approximately to the distance between Fresno and Los Angeles.
In addition, the oversupply of chloride in coffee crops inhibits the production of polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme associated with coffee beans quality. Coffee is a drink appreciated in most cultures and is present in the daily lives of millions of people around the world and these consumers are increasingly aware of the environmental and climate crisis. For these reasons, Brazilian coffee was chosen as our main focus for the time being, though our goal is to expand the certification to a greater diversity of products and geographic regions in the future.
According to the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) the country had a productive area of 1.88 million hectares in 2020, which means that approximately 942,000 tons of KCl are used in coffee crops in Brazil. When we think in terms of Cl, we have 451,200 tons, the equivalent of 18 thousand trucks of Cl being dumped on the ground every year. Lined up, these trucks would measure up to 201 miles, which corresponds approximately to the distance between Fresno and Los Angeles.
In addition, the oversupply of chloride in coffee crops inhibits the production of polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme associated with coffee beans quality. Coffee is a drink appreciated in most cultures and is present in the daily lives of millions of people around the world and these consumers are increasingly aware of the environmental and climate crisis. For these reasons, Brazilian coffee was chosen as our main focus for the time being, though our goal is to expand the certification to a greater diversity of products and geographic regions in the future.
KCl accounts for 90% of all potassium produced for agriculture
Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world, 35% of the world’s coffee production in 2019
Brazil had a productive area of 1.885 million hectares in 2020
In Brazil, 18 thousand trucks of Cl are dumped in the soil annually