Coffee with a conscientious kick

On a verdant Andean hillside 1,700m above sea level, Carlos Mario Roman points out four hectares where his late father, a coffee farmer, raised coca, a traditional stimulant and the raw material for cocaine. The crop is a common cause of deforestation on the slopes of the Andes.

Mr Roman has pulled out the coca plants and planted native trees to give shade to coffee plants. In another area, where he says that his father would have burnt or cut down forest to plant coffee, he has sown coffee in the glade of a natural wood. He has also planted numerous fruit trees on his 20-hectare farm – not to harvest, he says, but to bring back the birds that had left because of deforestation.

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