Coffee rows in Brazil’s Cerrado Mineiro, where illycaffè practices regenerative farming—rebuilding soil health, boosting biodiversity, and improving flavor from the ground up.
й ManfredoPinzauti/Luzphoto .
The climate math for coffee is sobering: by mid-century, up to half of today’s coffee-suitable land could slip out of viability as temperatures rise and weather swings intensify. Agriculture already covers roughly half of the world’s habitable land and draws about 70% of global freshwater withdrawals, while land-use change is a leading driver of biodiversity loss—meaning how we grow things is central to any credible climate strategy.
Against that backdrop, Andrea Illy, chairman of illycaffè, argues the fastest, most scalable lever isn’t a shiny new technology but a set of agronomic choices. “You can ideally trace a line from soil health to human health,” he told me. “If you have a healthy soil, you would have a healthy seed and a healthy consumer.” His frame—what he calls “Virtuous Agriculture”—leans on regenerative practices: build soil organic carbon, “replace agrochemistry with microbiology,” and design for “systemic biodiversity.” The result, he says, is resilience and quality—together.
Andrea Illy, chairman of illycaffè
courtesy of illycaffè
Illy traces his pivot to 2015, when he heard a stark forecast at Expo Milan: “up to 50% of the suitable land for coffee will be gone by 2050 as a consequence of climate change.” The company responded with a sector-wide pledge and a mapping exercise to “identify the areas of intervention for adapting,” from “agronomical practices improvement” to “plant renovation and new area development.” The barrier, he insists, isn’t capital. “There are no significant entry barriers to regenerative agriculture. It’s just a question of knowledge. You don’t need upfront investments and you have lower OPEX.”
That emphasis on knowledge shows up in illy’s two greenfield pilot farms and the University of Coffee program, which spreads what works across its supply network. “After seven years, 90% of the growers working with us adopted 70% of the agronomical practices,” Illy says. The company’s early role was recognized in 2023 when illy became the first coffee brand certified under the regenagri® scheme, launching a Brazil Cerrado Mineiro range sourced to regenerative criteria.
The surprise, he notes, was in the cup. “Regenerative agriculture is gentler…you will have a gentler produce, actually more refined in terms of flavor profile,” he told me, adding that the last two editions of the Ernesto Illy International Coffee Award were won by regenerative farms in Brazil. While Brazil is often stereotyped as a bulk producer, Illy argues terroir was never the problem: “Apparently the responsibility for standardized quality…was due to the agronomical practices.”
The ecological through-line is biodiversity—below ground and above. “By enriching soil with organic carbon, you enrich the soil microbiota,” he says. “There are more microorganisms in a teaspoon of soil than the entire universe,” he adds, only half-joking. That microbial life builds structure and water retention, cutting irrigation needs and buffering drought. Above ground, cultivar diversity offers a hedge against pests and disease; on-farm polycultures counter the “enormous destroyer of biodiversity” that is monoculture; and adjacent natural reserves seed what he calls “aerial biodiversity”—insects, birds, microbes—that deliver ecosystem services to the crop. In Brazil, where law requires at least 20% natural reserve on farms, many quality-focused producers approach a one-to-one ratio, he says. “What we can see is the higher the natural resource around the plantation the better the quality.”
This approach matters well beyond coffee. Agriculture is the top user of habitable land and a major factor in water scarcity and nature loss; in Illy’s phrasing, it is “priority number one.” regenerative systems can flip agriculture’s footprint “from negative to positive,” he argues, they rebuild planetary resilience—fast. He’s blunt about the stakes: ecosystems are entering “auto-powered self-destruction” as climate shocks mount, eroding the biosphere’s buffering capacity.
Skeptics often reduce sustainability to a trade-off story: higher costs now, uncertain payoffs later. Illy counters with finance basics. “Investors care for value. Profits are a prerequisite…but it’s not enough.” Reputational premiums can lift revenue; lower input intensity and liabilities can reduce costs; and lower perceived risk can cut the cost of capital. “Sustainability…is one of the biggest value builders that you can find in the industry,” he says—if it is “real,” not a “strictly compliance” exercise or “greenwashing.”
The health dimension is part of that “real” story for Illy. While he points to evolving regulatory signals, the more robust evidence base comes from epidemiology: large cohort studies have linked coffee consumption with lower all-cause mortality, and the World Health Organization’s IARC reversed its 1991 classification in 2016, concluding coffee is “not classifiable” as to carcinogenicity (the hazard is very hot beverages, not coffee per se). Illy’s next scientific question is whether regeneratively grown beans—by inducing plants’ own phytochemical defenses—might enhance those benefits. “This will be the next part of the journey.”
For all the systems talk, adoption depends on practicality. Illy stresses that regenerative is “not a yes or no”: growers can “phase in, phase out,” starting with compost to build soil carbon, adding cover crops, then dialing agrochemicals down “sometimes to zero,” or using “the best ones…in a much more controlled way” when weather or pests demand it. He warns against over-prescriptive regimes: “Agriculture [is] so complex…you have to completely reinvent your agronomical practice each and every year. Don’t put constraints on [growers’] shoulders…Regenerative so far has no constraints.”
There are cultural headwinds. Consumers, he notes, have pushed back on “top-down” sustainability that seems to shift costs onto households. Politics follows votes; “finance follows the money.” His bet is that capital markets will hold course on transition fundamentals even when rhetoric wobbles.
Still, the most actionable advice he offers CEOs is spare and pragmatic. “Look into it,” he says. “Look into it seriously and you will discover amazing surprises, positive ones.” The surprises he lists are concrete: higher productivity and land-use efficiency; reduced water intensity; richer biodiversity on-farm and off; fewer agrochemicals; and—critically for brand-driven categories like coffee—better taste. For an industry staring down climatic loss of growing areas—from Brazil to the Ethiopian highlands—the blend of resilience and quality may be the most persuasive case of all.
In practical terms, that means starting where agronomy meets incentives. Map your climate exposure; pilot regenerative practices in representative farms; use third-party frameworks (illy’s regenagri® path is one example) to set baselines and learn; and invest in farmer education that spreads what works across your supply network. Then, measure in both directions: from soil (carbon, water retention, biodiversity) to cup (quality, consistency) and to P&L (input costs, liability risks, price premiums, cost of capital). The point, as Illy puts it, is not ideology but outcomes. “It helps adaptation and mitigation at the same time with the exact same action,” he says. “More than you can dream.”