Bibliographic analysis of sustainability studies in the coffee agroecosystem from 2010 to 2019

Abstract

Diseases, pests and low prices issues have put coffee agroecosystem in a critical situation, thus damaging the producer economy and the growing area with coffee in Veracruz state. The aim of this research was to carry out a systematic review of the studies of sustainability assessment in coffee agroecosystems in the scientific literature during the last ten years. A search was conducted in bibliographic database such us Google Scholar, Scopus and Elsevier Science Direct Freedom using search engines. The concepts used were "assessment" "sustainability" and "coffee" used in English and Spanish, together with the use of Boolean indicators.  We found 12 scientific articles published in South America (Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil) and in Uganda Africa. Most of the evaluated areas are economic, social and environmental. Regarding the evaluation methods, 35.71% used sustainability indices and made comparisons between agroecosystems and tried to monitor progress or setbacks, 28.57% relied on the Framework for the Evaluation of Management Systems incorporating Sustainability Indicators (MESMIS), the rest of the works with 7.14% each, it proposes methodologies that have been validated and adapted to the context and its objective. It is concluded that there are few studies reported to evaluate the sustainability of coffee agroecosystems as confirmed by the 14 investigations analyzed in this work. On the other hand, the analysis of the information allows us to emphasize that the sustainability of the coffee agroecosystem is not merely related to the type of coffee system (Conventional, organic or agroecological) since the interactions that occur within each system are many and very diverse. Personal perceptions, such as society or culture, are also factors that reduce or promote the search for sustainability.