Question: Was coffee farming done to shade other trees?
About the article "Coffee", section "Ecological effects".

Candidate passages:
Originally, coffee farming was done in the shade of trees, which provided natural habitat for many animals and insects, roughly approximating the biodiversity of a natural forest.
These traditional farmers used compost of coffee pulp and excluded chemicals and fertilizers.
They also typically cultivated bananas and fruit trees as shade for the coffee trees, which provided additional income and food security.
However, in the 1970s and 1980s, during the Green Revolution, the US Agency for International Development and other groups gave eighty million dollars to plantations in Latin America for advancements to go along with the general shift to technified agriculture.
These plantations replaced their shade grown techniques with sun cultivation techniques to increase yields, which in turn destroyed forests and biodiversity.
Sun cultivation involves cutting down trees, and high inputs of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Environmental problems, such as deforestation, pesticide pollution, habitat destruction, soil and water degradation, are the effects of most modern coffee farms, and the biodiversity on the coffee farm and in the surrounding areas suffer.
As a result, there has been a return to both traditional and new methods of growing shade-tolerant varieties.
Shade-grown coffee can often earn a premium as a more environmentally sustainable alternative to mainstream sun-grown coffee. 
Originally, coffee farming was done in the shade of trees that provided a habitat for many animals and insects.
Remnant forest trees were used for this purpose, but many species have been planted as well.
These include leguminous trees of the genera "Acacia", "Albizia", "Cassia", "Erythrina", "Gliricidia", "Inga", and "Leucaena", as well as the nitrogen-fixing non-legume sheoaks of the genus "Casuarina", and the silky oak "Grevillea robusta".
This method commonly referred to as the traditional shaded method, or "shade-grown".
Starting in the 1970s, many farmers switched their production method to sun cultivation, in which coffee is grown in rows under full sun with little or no forest canopy.
This causes berries to ripen more rapidly and bushes to produce higher yields, but requires the clearing of trees and increased use of fertilizer and pesticides, which damage the environment and cause health problems.
Unshaded coffee plants grown with fertilizer yield the most coffee, although unfertilized shaded crops generally yield more than unfertilized unshaded crops: the response to fertilizer is much greater in full sun.
Although traditional coffee production causes berries to ripen more slowly and produce lower yields, the quality of the coffee is allegedly superior.
In addition, the traditional shaded method provides living space for many wildlife species.
Proponents of shade cultivation say environmental problems such as deforestation, pesticide pollution, habitat destruction, and soil and water degradation are the side effects of the practices employed in sun cultivation.
The American Birding Association, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, National Arbor Day Foundation, and the Rainforest Alliance have led a campaign for 'shade-grown' and organic coffees, which can be sustainably harvested.
Shaded coffee cultivation systems show greater biodiversity than full-sun systems, and those more distant from continuous forest compare rather poorly to undisturbed native forest in terms of habitat value for some bird species.
Another issue concerning coffee is its use of water.
According to "New Scientist", using industrial farming practices, it takes about of water to grow the coffee seeds needed to produce one cup of coffee, and the coffee is often grown in countries where there is a water shortage, such as Ethiopia.
By using sustainable agriculture methods, the amount of water usage can be dramatically reduced, while retaining comparable yields.
For comparison, the United States Geological Survey reports that one egg requires an input of of water; one serving of milk requires an input of of water; one serving of rice requires an input of of water; and one glass of wine requires an input of of water.
Coffee grounds may be used for composting or as a mulch.
They are especially appreciated by worms and acid-loving plants such as blueberries.
Some commercial coffee shops run initiatives to make better use of these grounds, including Starbucks' "Grounds for your Garden" project, and community sponsored initiatives such as "Ground to Ground".
Starbucks sustainability chief Jim Hanna has warned that Climate change may significantly impact coffee yields within a few decades.
Shade-grown coffee is a form of the beverage produced from coffee plants grown under a canopy of trees.
A canopy of assorted types of shade trees is created to cultivate shade-grown coffee.
Because it incorporates principles of natural ecology to promote natural ecological relationships, shade-grown coffee can be considered an offshoot of agricultural permaculture or agroforestry.
The resulting coffee is usually sold as “organic shade-grown”. 
To the foreign eye these areas would look like the rainforest, but are actually a diverse mix of food crops, herbs, hardwood trees, fruit trees, spices, and medicinal plants.
The Kichwa people see farming as a process that takes place in harmony with the rainforest, and the diversity of their gardens reflects this attitude toward the natural world.
Guayusa is planted from cuttings under the shade of other trees and shrubs, by taking a piece of a branch from an existing tree and placing it in rich soil.
New cuttings reach productivity in about 3 years after planting, at a height of about 8 feet.
Guayusa is always shade grown.
It needs the shade of other trees to fully develop its rich leaves, and is thus perfectly designed to be grown in robust and diverse agroforestry systems.
Runa plants guayusa with endangered hardwood trees, food crops, cacao, coffee, and other local plants, in order to maintain the ecological integrity of the rainforest while offering a variety of income sources to the farmers. 
The primary mode of employment in the Sakleshpur region is agriculture.
Crops grown include coffee, rice, pepper, cardamom, ginger and tea with coffee being dominant.
Sakleshpur coffee is shade grown on the slopes of the Western Ghats as the elevation is not high enough to enable the intensive cultivation practices followed in the Brazilian and Colombian highlands.
But shade cultivation is acclaimed by environmentalists rather than sunlight cultivation followed in Ethiopia and other African Coffee growing nations, as western ghats runs through Sakleshpur.
Large timber yielding trees such as Rose wood and Jack trees provide shade for these coffee bushes.
Coffee growers are typically small farm owners with plantation sizes ranging from to as in Kaadumane Estate.
Of late, several corporations such as Tata,IBC Group and the TI group have adopted large scale cultivation.
The larger plantations process and market the coffee themselves in the domestic and international markets.
Sakleshpur Taluk accounts for around a third of Indian cardamom production.