The next time you find yourself being woken up by birds chirping, take a moment to consider how those avian singers have helped you continue to enjoy your daily cups of coffee.

In Jamaica, migratory warblers have been helping coffee farmers combat the effects of tiny insects that have the ability to destroy up to 70 percent of a single coffee crop. In a country that depends on coffee exports to support their economy that means business lost. The Hypothenemus hampei, also known as the coffee berry borer, is a tiny bug that feeds on the berries that coffee plants produce. Female coffee berry borers lay their eggs over the berries’ openings, and as those eggs hatch, the young literally eat the berries from the inside out. The coffee beans held within the berries are destroyed in the process, making for disappointing yields for coffee growers.

A solution from above

Fixing this problem can be costly. Some estimates place the overall damage done by these bugs at a half-billion dollars in profit lost per year, worldwide. At less than two millimeters long, traps for these insects are worthless. The only true solution, an expensive insecticide called endosulfan, guarantees to wipe out the bugs. But it’s so toxic, that it could poison humans as well.

So, with the help of funding through National Geographic, researchers from California’s Humboldt State University are working in Jamaica’s famous Blue Mountain to test the effectiveness of a bug-busting solution that is neither costly nor toxic: birds. As natural predators to the coffee bean borer, the warblers feast on the insects before they have a change to lay their eggs. The results so far have been a 14 percent drop in infestation, cutting berry damage by 50 percent.

“This is one of those win-win situations,” Matthew Johnson, an ecologist and associate wildlife professor at Humboldt who is working on the project, told National Geographic News. “Something that is good for the farmer, good for the birds, and good for the environment.”

The best type of environment for these birds to do their job is, of course, areas densely populated with trees. While most coffee farms are made up of bare pastures full of coffee plants, Johnson hopes farmers will consider harvesting shade-grown coffee as a trade-off. It’s an environmentally friendly tactic that will make the birds happy and cut down on deforestation in Jamaica’s coffee-growing regions.

For us, a sweet turn on green living

What does all this mean for the average coffee shop customer? Advocates of shade-grown coffee say the brews these beans produce taste sweeter than those produced through traditional, sun-drying methods. In addition, the Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center has recently developed a “Bird Friendly” certification that appears on many shade-grown coffee labels. Held to strict ecological standards, this seal only appears on coffees grown under at least three layers of canopy in conditions that benefit avian life.

Right now, 35 farms produce coffee “green” enough to bear this seal on their packaging. Once the idea of free pest removal catches on with coffee farmers, however, that number should take off like the birds themselves.

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