Keeping bees for better coffee

As pollinators, bees play a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity and food security. Around 75% of crops rely on insect pollination and, while coffee is not heavily dependent on bees, they do enhance coffee production. The presence of bees on coffee farms means more pollination, and more well-formed beans in the coffee berries. Placing beehives in coffee farms can lead to better-quality coffee and higher yields, which also means higher income for growers.

ECOM initiated our SMS Bee Project, in partnership with Nespresso and CarmoCoffees, and included producers in the Cerrado and the south of Minas Gerais in 2023, to encourage coffee farmers to become beekeepers. After training farmers and collecting suitable swarms of bees, the project was implemented with five participating growers in the Cerrado and Minas Gerais in Brazil in 2023. As well as potentially increasing their coffee yields, the farmers can sell the bees’ honey for additional income.

In 2023, we had 11 producers participating in the project, producing an average of 2,000 kilos of honey per year.