From Forest to Cup: What It Takes to Make Regenerative Agroforestry Work in Practice

Coffee production is deeply connected to the ecosystems in which it grows. Climate change, soil degradation, biodiversity loss, and economic uncertainty are putting coffee-growing regions under increasing pressure. This raises a central question: How can production systems become more climate-resilient and sustainable while remaining economically attractive for farmers?

One approach gaining attention in this context is agroforestry. “In simple terms, this means integrating trees and ecological diversity back into agricultural systems,” explained Dr. Katharina Lima de Miranda, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager at HRNS, during the recent webinar “From Forest to Cup – Transforming Coffee Landscapes through Regenerative Agroforestry.” By growing coffee alongside trees and other plants rather than as a monoculture, agroforestry can help protect soils, create shade, retain moisture, support biodiversity, and provide farmers with additional sources of income (read Navigating the Transition from Monoculture in the Coffee Sector to learn more about agroforestry).

Moderated by Lima de Miranda, the webinar brought together Beatriz Borth, Senior Program Officer at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Christina Singh, COO and Co-Founder of GrowGrounds, a company working at the intersection of coffee, agroforestry, and carbon finance,and Francyelly Lasmar Balduino, Co-Country Manager at HRNS do Brazil, to discuss the practical conditions for regenerative agroforestry: farmer engagement, biodiversity considerations, financing, and long-term scalability.

A recording of the event is available here.

At the beginning of the webinar, Borth emphasized the urgency of this transition. For farmers, the question is no longer only “how to produce more,” she said, but “how to continue producing at all.” What is needed, she argued, is a “fundamental shift that ensures that production systems remain viable, resilient, and productive over time.”

This is where nature-based solutions can play an important role. “They can help address several challenges at once,” Borth explained – from climate adaptation and carbon sequestration to ecosystem restoration and livelihoods. At the same time, she cautioned that they are not automatic win-win approaches and that their outcomes depend on how they are designed and implemented.

This is especially important when carbon enters the conversation. If projects focus only on carbon, they may deliver emission benefits while doing little for biodiversity, or may even undermine it. “Biodiversity is not a co-benefit that we add on the top,” Borth emphasized. “It is the foundation.” In practice, this means building biodiversity into the system from the start – through planting designs, safeguards, and monitoring (read Balancing Nature and Livelihoods to learn more about integrating biodiversity into coffee systems).

Balduino shared insights from an ongoing HRNS do Brazil project with GrowGrounds, working with farmers near the Serra do Papagaio State Park in the state of Minas Gerais. In this region, coffee and pasture production coexist with ecosystems of high environmental value, while many farmers are already experiencing climate-related challenges, from irregular rainfall to impacts on coffee quality and growing fire risks.

Yet making agroforestry work in this context is complex. Balduino pointed to practical uncertainties that can slow implementation: unclear land tenure, complex long-term carbon contracts, uncertain rural succession, and hesitation toward new production approaches. These uncertainties also show why inclusion matters. As Lima de Miranda noted, involving women, youth, and other groups can bring different perspectives into regenerative transitions — including a stronger focus on preserving the environment for future generations.

The decisive factor, however, is economic viability. For Balduino, the central challenge is to build production models “that connect conservation with income generation for farmers.” Singh reinforced this point from the financing perspective. “When you ask me what motivates farmers, it is the money,” she said. In other words, agroforestry needs to become a real business case.

Economic viability can come from several sources. Carbon credits can contribute by rewarding environmental action over time (read Linking Smallholder Farmers in Tanzania to the Carbon Credit Market to learn more about how carbon credits can benefit smallholder farmers). For Singh, this makes carbon “part of the solution.”

But carbon alone cannot carry the transition. Balduino explained that HRNS do Brazil treats carbon as an additional source of income – “not as the main reason to start the project with us.” Agroforestry first needs to make sense as a farming system. Several factors can contribute to this business case: maintaining yields, strengthening climate resilience, improving coffee quality, diversifying income through other products, and reducing input costs. Singh pointed, for example, to planting designs that attract natural enemies of coffee pests, helping farmers use fewer pesticides. Balduino added that the project focuses on designs that do not reduce current yields, while improving quality and opening access to different markets.

Biodiversity credits may add further financial opportunities by rewarding measurable improvements for nature and creating incentives for nature-positive action. But Borth cautioned that they need “high integrity from the start,” with strong metrics and robust monitoring. Otherwise, they risk repeating some of the challenges already seen in carbon markets.

As Borth pointed out, even well-designed projects can “struggle to scale because the system does not support them.” Scaling regenerative agroforestry therefore requires enabling systems around individual farmers and projects: policies that create the right incentives, finance that supports long-term investment, markets that reward sustainability, and institutional capacity to support implementation beyond the initial project phase.

For Borth, credibility, sustainability, and scalability also depend on clear standards, strong safeguards, and robust monitoring systems. These elements may not be as visible as “the nice trees and the work of the farmers,” Borth noted, but they are essential to manage trade-offs, reduce risks, and show whether projects are delivering measurable outcomes for climate, biodiversity, and livelihoods.

Local capacity is also part of this enabling system. For agroforestry systems to continue beyond the initial project phase, farmers and local teams need the knowledge, partnerships, and long-term support to manage them over time. As Balduino emphasized, they need to be “part of the decisions” when systems are designed because they are the ones working with them every day.

As Lima de Miranda summarized, regenerative transitions are “not only about planting trees.” They are about aligning very different realities: a viable business case for farmers, biodiversity as a foundation, finance and market conditions for long-term implementation, safeguards for credibility, and local capacity to keep systems working beyond the project phase. Regenerative agroforestry can work – but only when these elements are designed to support each other from the start. For coffee landscapes under pressure, this means treating agroforestry not as a single intervention, but as a system that connects ecological resilience with the livelihoods of the people who manage it every day.