Journal of Agricultural Science; Vol. 8, No. 11; 2016 ISSN 1916-9752 E-ISSN 1916-9760 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 11 Shade’s Benefit: Coffee Production under Shade and Full Sun Valdir Alves 1,2 , Fernando F. Goulart 3 , Tamiel Khan B. Jacobson 1,2 , Reinaldo J. de Miranda Filho 4 & Clarilton Edzard D. Cardoso Ribas 2 1 Programa de Pós Graduação em Meio Ambiente e Desenvolvimento Rural, Faculdade UnB Planaltina, Universidade de Brasília, Planaltina, DF, Brazil 2 Programa de Pós Graduação em Agroecossistemas, Centro de Ciências Agrárias, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, SC, Brazil 3 Análise e Modelagem de Sistemas Ambientais/Centro de Sensoriamento Remoto, Dept. Cartografia, Instituto de Geociências, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil 4 Faculdade UnB Planatina, Universidade de Brasília, RADIS/Fup, Planaltina, DF, Brazil Correspondence: Fernando Goulart, Análise e Modelagem de Sistemas Ambientais/Centro de Sensoriamento Remoto, Dept. Cartografia, Instituto de Geociências, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG Cep: 31270-901, Brazil. E-mail: goulart.ff@gmail.com Received: July 26, 2016 Accepted: September 2, 2016 Online Published: October 15, 2016 doi:10.5539/jas.v8n11p11 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/jas.v8n11p11 Abstract Coffee has major importance in tropical landscapes from agronomic, economic and ecological perspectives. Yet the conversion of shade-coffee into full sun monocultures has deep effect on the potential of those systems to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems services (such as pest control and pollination). Despite of this, effect of shade on production has not been sufficiently addressed, particularly in Brazil, the world major coffee producer. This study compared the performance of shaded coffee and full sun management in terms of productivity and production costs. The survey was conducted in Municipality of Mirante da Serra, in the Brazilian Amazon and eight coffee agroecosystems, four under shade and four under full sun were investigated. The results indicate that shaded systems have lower production costs requiring less working hours than sun plantations. The average production cost of shaded agroecosystems was 49.63%, while in systems under full sun, this value was 82.2%. Shaded and full sun productivity did not differ significantly, with higher variance in the former, showing that shaded systems are more heterogeneous. Shaded coffee agroecosystems presented an economically and environmentally viable alternative. The lower production cost enhances economic viability of these ecosystems in Amazon as well as in the rest of the tropics. Such efficiency may have influenced the persistence of these managements, despite the worldwide agriculture intensification tendency. Keywords: agroecosystems, agroecology, coffee production cost, full sun coffee, shade-grown coffee 1. Introduction Coffee plantations covers 10,420,008 thousand hectares (Rudel et al., 2009), playing major role from economic to ecological perspective at global scale. In several coffee producer countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama and Mexico, traditional cultivation of coffee is done under shading trees (Ricci et al., 2006). These shade-coffee plantations are considered biodiversity reservoirs, and yet serving for its productive end (Perfecto & Vandermeer, 2010). Agriculture intensification via tree removal and input use is known to reduce habitat extent and quality for native fauna. Intensification also promotes the decline in the provision of ecosystems services to coffee (such as pest control and pollination) (Goulart et al., 2012; Perfecto et al., 2004). This species loss may, therefore, reduce coffee production at long term (Goulart et al., 2012). The maintenance of those biodiversity rich ecosystems is largely depending upon the economic and productive viability for farmers. Brazil is the world’s major coffee producer, supplying one third of the worlds’ coffee gross production (FAOSTAT, 2016). Despite of this, there are many knowledge gaps on many aspects of coffee production in Brazil, particularly regarding the shade influences. In 2014 national coffee production was 2712 million kg of benefited, being 70.5% of the total species arabica and 29.5% of the total species Coffea canephora (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics [IBGE], 2014). Rondônia occupies the 5th place on the national ranking of