Many social and environmental concerns are associated with the growth, processing, and distribution of "conventional" (non-organic, non-shade grown) coffee including loss of biodiversity, loss of endangered-birds' habitat, increased soil erosion, use of chemicals & pesticides, water pollution. There is also concern over relationships between modern farming practices and the intensity and degree of adverse social and environmental impacts.

Modern or "conventional" farming operations are often owned by corporations and tend to cover large areas of open fields, previously occupied by diverse rainforest canopy. The success of large corporate farms may not be reflected into the local community where the coffee is grown. Traditional coffee farming practices cause little disruption to the vertical plant communities in the rainforest, as local farmers clear only small areas on the forest floor to grow subsistence crops and coffee plants. Traditional farmers most often leave the large tree species in place which provides habitat for birds. There are many other levels of coffee farming practices, each of which has corresponding levels of adverse impacts on the forest. (See Figure 1)

Coffee drinkers pour a fresh cup each morning to start the day, and unlike cigarette smokers, there is no label to advise them of the environmental and social distress caused by the cultivation, processing and distribution of their early morning cup of joe. Unfortunately, a standardized government label (to warn us of the environmental and human health risks associated with the product's life cycle) is not available for everything we consume.

Conventional coffee is produced in an artificial environment; without the protective forest canopy, with full exposure to sunlight, altered soil chemistry and composition, erosion, and other ecological aspects. Coffee naturally grows in the shade of the dense forest canopy, thus conventional coffee often requires the use of pesticides, fertilizers, and insecticides to produce high yields.

There are several "shade gradients" that can be used to identify the differential coffee farming techniques and their environmental impacts (See Figure 1). The first shade gradient, rustic, is a more traditional method (currently very rarely practiced) that has the smallest ecological footprint. Small family owned farms add coffee plants to the natural forest vegetation allowing for the retention of high levels of biodiversity. The next gradient, traditional polyculture, integrates plants aside from coffee that can be used by the family and also as a back up crop. No pesticides are used. In commercial polyculture some of the shade or forest canopy is removed for larger coffee yields. Pesticides may be used which can be harmful to farm workers and cause water pollution. The next gradient, shaded monoculture, uses one or two species of pruned canopy trees as shade and plants coffee shrubs close together. Unshaded monoculture operations have the largest ecological footprint, cultivating coffee in open fields (created by the burning of rainforest vegetation, AKA "slash and burn").