Bird Friendly Coffee

• 3.2.15 Brief Info BirdFriendly (02.04.08)

1.      Bird Friendly^® Coffee:

• Is a program and label established by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center (SMBC) in Washington DC
• Aims at protecting coffee plantations with high, dense and diverse shade tree canopies, because these plantations provide a habitat for many species of migratory and native birds
• Has a growing market especially in the USA, but also in Japan and Europe, coffee importers and roasters are starting to be interested in Bird Friendly^® coffee. 

Please visit http://nationalzoo.si.edu/ConservationAndScience/MigratoryBirds/Coffee/ to find more information about the program, including addresses of roasters and distributors, who might be interested in your Bird Friendly^® coffee.

2.      Basic requirements:

•  As a pre-requisite, the coffee plantation or coffee producer group needs to be organic certi­fied, according to the EU Regulation on organic farming or NOP.
•  The shade canopy has to be relatively dense, with at least 40% shade cover.
•  The shade canopy should have a structural diversity: this means that trees canopies should compose different layers ("strata").
•  The main canopy layer ("stratum") must be at least 12 m high.
•  There must be at least 11 different tree species composing the shade canopy.
•  The predominating tree species shouldn't make up more than 60% of the total canopy, and shouldn't be an exotic species.
•  Bird Friendly^® coffee must be clearly separated from all other coffee (organic or conventio­nal), at all stages of harvest, post harvest, processing and trade. 

3.      Steps to follow for Bird Friendly^® certification:

• If you believe, that your farm, plantation or producer group complies with the Bird Friendly^® requirements, you can apply to CERES for certification and sign a contract.
• It is also possible, that only part of your farm or part of your farmer group are selected for Bird Friendly^® certification, if not all the land or all the farmers comply with the criteria.
• In case that CERES is also your organic certifier, the Bird Friendly^® inspection will be inclu­ded in your annual organic inspection. This helps to reduce costs. Otherwise, we will sche­dule a separate inspection.
• An inspector approved by SMBC will visit your farm or farmer group, and assess com­pliance with the above-mentioned criteria. (Plus a number of more detailed criteria, please see the complete "BF Criteria" published by SMBC; those mentioned above, however, are the essential ones).
• The inspection report will be submitted to the CERES headquarter, for evaluation. In case of compliance with the criteria, a Bird Friendly^® certificate will be issued. Copies of the ins­pec­tion report and certificate will be sent to SMBC.
• In case of smallholder groups with an internal control system (ICS), the internal ins­pec­tors must also cover the additional Bird Friendly^® criteria during their visits to the farm. CERES provides a form developed by SMBC for this particular purpose. CERES should specially train the internal ins­pec­tors for this purpose.
• After completing internal inspections to all farms, the ICS must perform a pre-assessment of compliance of their members. As mentioned above, it is possible to establish a subgroup of those farmers, who comply with the criteria – if separate handling of their coffee is assu­red.
• The CERES inspector will then re-inspect a sample of the farmers, to evaluate the perfor­mance of the ICS.

»     The Bird Friendly^® certificate will be valid for three years, provided that the producer holds a valid and updated organic certificate. The three-year validity does not apply in case there are significant changes, like e.g. new fields or new farmers being included, or a significant reduction of the coffee production. Traceability of Bird Friendly^® coffee must be checked annually during the routine organic inspection.