Coffee, trees, and labor: Political economy of biodiversity in commodity agroforests

By Paul Robbins, Vaishnavi Tripurareni, Krithi Karanth, Ashwini Chhatre
Annals of the American Association of Geographers | September 2020

DOI

doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2020.1803726

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Citation

Robbins, Paul., Tripurareni, Vaishnavi., Karanth, Krithi., Chhatre, Ashwini. Coffee, trees, and labor: Political economy of biodiversity in commodity agroforests Annals of the American Association of Geographers doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2020.1803726.

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2020

Abstract

Tropical and subtropical plantation agriculture has been shown to be compatible with the conservation of biodiversity, but the specific practices, conditions, and farmer strategies associated with such diversity remain poorly understood. In the ecologically rich region of India’s Western Ghats, specifically, farm-scale tree species diversity is a key structural condition explaining avian diversity. Surveying a sample of coffee plantations in the region, we examine farm-scale conditions that give rise to biodiversity. Results suggest that larger plantation size, recent increase in canopy density, and the cultivation of Coffea arabica varieties all encourage tree species diversity necessary for habitat. Results also suggest, however, that these structural conditions are more labor and pesticide intensive. These findings raise some serious questions about the sustainability of biodiversity in this context and suggest difficult trade-offs under conditions of demographic transition, declining labor availability, and concern about chemical inputs. They also reinforce the importance of neo-Chayanovian theories of smallholder behavior throughout geography but especially in the field of political ecology.

Ashwini Chhatre is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Bharti Institute of Public Policy (BIPP) at the Indian School of Business (ISB). Professor Chhatre is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research interests broadly centre on the dynamic cross-scale interactions between governance, economic development, and environmental protection. He relocated to India from the US in 2014 to join the faculty at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. He spent 13 years in the US, including five in graduate school at Duke University, where he was awarded a PhD in Political Science. In 2006-07, Professor Chhatre became the first Giorgio Ruffolo Post-doctoral Fellow in Sustainability Science at Harvard University, before joining the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

Between completing his BA in Economics from the University of Delhi in 1990 and starting his PhD at Duke University, he spent 11 years working in different parts of India, primarily as a community organiser and social activist on issues related to natural resources such as land, forests, and water. A background in Economics, graduate training in Political Science, and a long-standing engagement with scholarship in Geography, Anthropology, Landscape Ecology, and Environmental History ensure that his research is never confined to a single discipline.

Professor Chhatre’s main research interests lie in exploring the intersection of democracy, environment, and development, with a focus on decentralised forest governance, climate change vulnerability and adaptation, and multifunctional agriculture. Over the past 20 years, the scope of his research projects has ranged from household-level to global analysis, consistently bridging research, policy, and practice.

He was the founding Editor-in-Chief of World Development Perspectives (2016-19), served as Senior Editor of Conservation Letters (2009-2014), and has published one book and several articles in leading journals including Science, and PNAS.

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