Coffee (Coffea arabica) and cacao (Theobroma cacao) are important agricultural crops in the developing world that have been traditionally grown under a light canopy of rainforest trees created by thinning the original rainforest. In the 1970s, growers in South America began changing their planting practices, setting out sun-tolerant varieties of these plants in uniform rows. Coffee and cacao grown in full sun require more pesticides and fertilizer in order to thrive. In addition, when rainforest is cleared in order to grow these crops in sun, animals and native plants lose their habitat, and biodiversity (the number of different plant an animal species in a habitat) decreases.

Coffee and cacao are grown in places that would normally support tropical rainforests with enormous biodiversity. The original technique of thinning the forest and growing these crops in shade under a light canopy of trees reduced...