Coffee-driven deforestation is making it harder to grow coffee, watchdog group says

Coffee-driven deforestation is making it harder to grow coffee, watchdog group says

James Doubek

October 24, 2025 / 12:13 pm

As the world's thirst for coffee shows no signs of slowing down, widely used practices to ramp up the crop's production have become self-defeating, according to a nonprofit watchdog group.

In Brazil, the world's biggest coffee producer, coffee farming is driving deforestation — and that, in turn, makes coffee harder to grow.

More than 1,200 square miles of forest were cleared for coffee cultivation in Brazil's coffee-growing areas between 2001 and 2023, according to a new report from the group Coffee Watch . The group used satellite images, government land use data and a forest-loss alert system in its analysis.

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