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

Resumen

Phytosanitary problems and low prices have put coffee production in a critical situation, affecting the economy of producers and the area cultivated with coffee in the state of Veracruz. The objective of this work was to carry out a systematic review of the main researches carried out on sustainability in the coffee agroecosystem and reported in the scientific literature of the last ten years.

The methodology applied was documentary in nature and it was based on the bibliographic review in the search engines Google Scholar, Scopus, and Elsevier Science Direct Freedom. The English and Spanish “evaluation”, “sustainability”, and “coffee” concepts were input into the search engines, combined with Boolean operators. In the last ten years, sustainability studies about coffee agroecosystems were published in South America (Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil) and Africa (Uganda) analyzing economic, social, and environmental dimensions. With regard to the evaluation methods, 35.71% used sustainability indexes, performing comparisons between agroecosystems, and endeavored to monitor trends. The Framework for the Evaluation of Natural Resource Management Systems Incorporating Sustainability Indicators (MESMIS) supported 28.57% of the methods. The rest of the studies (7.14%) proposed methodologies that have been validated and adapted to the object-context and the objective. In addition, it was identified that the analysis of the sustainability of the coffee agroecosystem is not close related to the type of coffee system (conventional, organic or agroecological), since the interactions that occur within each system are diverse and complex; social or cultural perceptions are factors that reduce or promote the search for sustainability. It is concluded that few studies (14) about sustainability of coffee agroecosystems have been published during 2010-2019 period.