Farmers are always looking for an edge over their competitors. In the coffee business, countries compete against each other. Costa Rican coffee is in competition with Colombian coffee. In the latter you could actually follow a paper trail from the package all the way back to the farm, meet the farmer, and see his trees and his family. If you believe that accountability makes for a better product, then there really is only one choice, but the price is not equal, and therein lies the complexity.
Money now is more valuable than money later.
So with demand for shade-grown and certified organic increasing, farmers are responding to the need so as to be there early. Your purchases add to that demand. Song Bird Coffee B y preserving rainforests, shade growth also preserves songbird habitat. Almost as many migrating birds live in shade coffee farms as in uncultivated rainforests, while very few species can tolerate a shadeless monoculture of coffee trees. The resulting Song Bird coffees enable bird lovers to vote with their pocketbooks for the survival of bird habitat.