Anitha Nanda's love of coffee started at an early age. As a child, the Bangalore, India, native visited her grandfather's coffee estate in Coorg.
Now, Nanda is a coffee farmer herself, and her sustainable farming methods have earned her a Rainforest Alliance Certification, per Krishi Jagran.
At her Coorg-based estate, Nanda grows her crops under a rainforest canopy. This provides shelter for birds, insects, and wildlife. She also focuses primarily on organic farming practices, maintains native trees, and prioritizes soil health. She even recently took up beekeeping.
Initially, Nanda and her husband struggled to pull good harvests, Krishi Jagran reports. However, they finally succeeded after adopting intercropping techniques, planting multiple crops together. In this case, they successfully planted coffee and black pepper plants side by side.
"It took almost 10 years before we saw good yields from our robusta coffee plants," Nanda told Krishi Jagran, which added that the couple now grows 110 acres of robusta and 40 acres of arabica coffee.
Nanda's sustainability efforts are critically important in Coorg, a region that The Times of India describes as a biodiversity hot spot. The area also supports a number of threatened and endangered species, including the Coorg night frog.
Meanwhile, Nanda encourages other local farmers to adopt sustainable practices, ensuring the health of the land that sustains them. Not only do healthy ecosystems support farming, but they also provide communities with clean air, water, and other resources, National Geographic explains. Plus, biodiversity can help combat rising global temperatures, according to the United Nations.
Nanda is one example of how people across the world are taking important steps to safeguard the planet and the ecosystem services it provides. For instance, local farmers in Cameroon have returned to a traditional farming method called Zai, which restores degraded soil, increases crop yields, and prevents erosion.
"Our shade-grown coffee farms provide shelter for birds, insects, and wildlife, helping to maintain the natural balance of our ecosystem. We must protect this land from climate change and global warming," Nanda told Krishi Jagran.
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