As one of the most traded commodities worldwide and a staple in most Westerner’s diets, coffee has long suffered from a controversial reputation on the basis of unsustainable practices pertaining to flora, fauna, and humans. The new specialty coffee movement, which also purports itself to be actively engaging with and promoting more pro-environmental values, and the interlinkage with its unique customer base are the focus of this research. This thesis seeks to analyze whether said consumers represent a niche of ethical consumerism, which would reflect back on the movement as whole as an advocate of the human rights tradition. Through the use of attitude surveys, it was found that there is a significant part of the consumer base considerably involved with sustainability issues. This, however, does not apply to all of the sample group.

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The world's biodiversity is concentrated in tropical ecosystems, yet tropical forests are being converted for agriculture at a rapid rate. I evaluated the potential of an alternative coffee production system known as Integrated Open Canopy (IOC) to contribute to avian conservation. This study was conducted from 2005-2010 in the Cordillera de Tilarán, Costa Rica. My results indicate that species richness of forest-dependent birds was higher in IOC farms than in shade coffee farms, and was comparable to secondary forest sites. There was no difference in species richness of Neotropical-Nearctic migrants between IOC and shade coffee farms. Overall similarity was higher between IOC farms and primary forest than between shade coffee farms and primary forest. he golden-winged warbler Vermivora chrysoptera is a declining Neotropical-Nearctic migrant bird, yet little is known about its non-breeding season ecology and demographics. I found that golden-winged warbler abundance was highest at intermediate precipitation levels found at middle elevations (1000-1200 m) of the Pacific slope, but they were absent from the dry forests at lower elevations on the Pacific slope. Abundance peaked in forests with canopy heights of 22 m, and was positively related to the quantity of hanging dead leaves. Radio-telemetry data indicated that golden-winged warblers used microhabitat features characteristic of disturbance more frequently than expected by chance. Selection of these microhabitat features was related to their highly specialized dead-leaf foraging behavior, which may also have contributed to their high degrees of site fidelity, mixed-species flock attendance, and territoriality. These behaviors have important conservation implications because they constrain density, and thus could affect carrying capacity. Population dynamics were characterized by estimating plot-level and individual-level apparent survival and recruitment rates within and among non-breeding seasons. Both levels of analysis suggested that recruitment was too low to offset mortalities within this study area. This study indicates that increasing forest cover in tropical agricultural landscapes may be the most effective way of providing habitat for bird species of high conservation concern, including the golden-winged warbler. Integrated open canopy coffee production is one option for achieving this goal because it provides a financial incentive to protect or restore forest.

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Coffee is an important commodity being traded daily on major commodity trade exchanges in London and New York. Meanwhile, in emerging markets like Brazil, Vietnam, and Colombia, coffee is a major source of revenue, with exports of coffee accounting for, in some cases, over 80% of foreign exchange earnings . As the fourth largest exporter of coffee beans in the world, Indonesia holds a strong opportunity to be a prominent coffee player in the world, not only by exporting raw material to developed countries but also by performing solemn roles in coffee global marketing strategies. Sadly, from preliminary research that I conducted before, I found out that the knowledge level of most Indonesian coffee farmers, particularly in coffee processing techniques, is relatively beyond par. How can Indonesia become a respected global player in coffee industry if the farmers do not simply know how to roast and grind their coffee? Coffee does not only affect world economy. In fact, it touches social cultural aspect in globalization, diffusion of innovations and technology, agricultural sustainability, and human empowerment among coffee farmers. Based on those above notions, I decided to commence on a particular study of a Motramed (Mediated Partnership Model) program, designed and implemented by ICCRI (Indonesian Coffee and Cacao Research Institute), to specialty coffee farmers in Bondowoso, East Java, Indonesia. Over several weeks that I spent in Jember, in ICCRI headquarter, I met directly with ICCRI researchers who are in charge for Motramed development program under Dr. Surip Mawardi’s supervision, respective Motramed farmers in Bondowoso, East Java and Motramed’s social actors. We engaged in an intense dialogue and qualitative interviews regarding Motramed program and its implications towards social, economy, and behavioral change. The study result was tremendously proliferated by myself observation of exploratory study which through that process, I found significant relations between ground theories of development and their field practice.

Thesis (M. Sc. Agriculture (Plant Protection)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / Mimusops zeyheri tree groves made up of seventeen trees collected from communities in Southern Africa were used in this study. The trees had high morphological variations in terms of growth rate, fruit (size and taste) and leaf (shapes and sizes) and their identification was made by communal people from where the trees were collected using their morphological characteristics. Generally, this evergreen tree is drought‒tolerant, salt‒tolerant and highly resistant to root-knot (Meloidogyne spp.) nematodes, along with various other pests. This could probably be attributed to high concentration of latex in aboveground organs. Some typical fungal rust symptoms have been observed believed to be the cause of high leaf abscission in certain groves. Currently, there is no report of leaf rust disease on M. zeyheri plants and the mechanism of resistance to other pests is not documented. The objective of this study was to (i) identify the pathogen associated with M. zeyheri leaf rust symptoms using morphological technique and to (ii) determine levels and types of potential defence chemicals and endophytes in M. zeyheri. Samples of M. zeyheri leaves showing rust like symptoms were collected from University of Limpopo, South Africa (23°53”10’S, 29°44”15’E) during summer in September 2018. Light compound microscope and electron microscope were used in the identification of the leaf rust spores. The species identity of the seventeen M. zeyheri trees that form a grove collection at University of Limpopo was confirmed using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of ribosomal nuclear DNA. DNA extraction and sequencing was done with the help of Inqaba Biotechnologies. Obtained DNA sequences were aligned using CLUSTALX (2.0), with the phylogenetic tree constructed through the neighbour-joining method (NJM) in MEGA v. 5.1 programme. Evolutionary distances were computed using the Juke– Cantor method. Phytochemicals in leaves were identified and quantified using Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) at ARC-VOP. The pustules on the collected leaves contained reddish brown spores. The uredospores were oval and ellipsoidal under a light microscope. The size of spores ranged between 35-37 × 24-26 µm. The cell walls showed bilaminate structures with the outer layer hyaline. The warts were rod shaped with one subequatorial germ pore. The most common identified endophytic fungi observed in all M. zeyheri leaves were Teratosphaeria species, Zeloasperium species, Pezizomycotina. In addition, endophytes such as Cladosporium species, Aspergillus species, Phyllosticta species and Epicoccum species were also identified to be associated with some M. zeyheri trees. There were significant differences on the level of tannins, flavonoids, proteins and phenolics among the M. zeyheri trees. The highest level of tannins was 7.2151 mg/g and the lowest being 2.7232 mg/g. The highest level of flavonoids was 1.1537 mg/g the lowest being 0.0123 mg/g. The level of phenolics among the trees ranged from 2.4749 mg/g to 1.5788 mg/g. Protein content ranged from 5.3100% to 2.7967% among the trees. Very high levels of tannins, flavonoids, phenolics among the trees when compared with others studies indicate the potential role of these metabolites in previously reported resistance of M. zeyheri to a number of pests. The morphological characteristics of the identified leaf rust pathogen causing rust symptoms on M. zeyheri in South Africa is more similar to Maravalia species previously isolated from M. caffra. And as such, this finding is paramount, as it is the first report of association between the pathogen and the plant. Teratosphaeria species has been associated with stem cancer in Eucalyptus trees, its presence in M. zeyheri species in asymptomatic plants is a major find since the tree is common in Limpopo and Mpumalanga, Provinces well known for forestry production making M. zeyheri a potential host for pathogens of commercial forestry production. Other endophytes observed such as Aspergillus species, Phyllosticta species and Cladosporium species have been shown to protect plants against some pests and pathogenic organism. Further studies to determine the direct role of identified phytochemicals and endophytes in the resistance of M. zeyheri to pests needs to be conducted