"As the world's thirst for coffee shows no signs of slowing down, widely used practices to ramp up the crop's production have become self-defeating, according to a nonprofit watchdog group.
In Brazil, the world's biggest coffee producer, coffee farming is driving deforestation — and that, in turn, makes coffee harder to grow.
More than 1,200 square miles of forest were cleared for coffee cultivation in Brazil's coffee-growing areas between 2001 and 2023, according to a new report from the group Coffee Watch. The group used satellite images, government land use data and a forest-loss alert system in its analysis.
Overall, in areas with a high concentration of coffee-growing operations, a total of more than 42,000 square miles of forest are now gone, the report said. This includes forest loss caused directly by coffee farming — where land was cleared to grow the crop — as well as indirectly, from nearby road and infrastructure projects, for example."
James Doubek reports for NPR October 24, 2025.
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