Professor Jeremy Haggar joined the University of Greenwich in January 2011, where he is leader of the Ecosystem Services Research Group. Between 2011 and 2024 he has won projects worth over £6 million. A central area of research has been understanding the economic and environmental trade-offs or synergies in coffee agroforestry systems funded under by BBSRC/GCRF. Related to this he has managed two Darwin Initiative projects assessing the role of agroforestry in conserving biodiversity and environmental sustainability of production in Guatemala. He has also researched the role of sustainability certifications, and Fairtrade in particular, in enabling environmental sustainability and economic wellbeing. As a result of participation in an EU funded project in 2013 to rehabilitate coffee production in Sierra Leone, Prof Haggar started the search for a native coffee Coffea stenophylla. Finally in 2018 together with Aaron Davis from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and collaborators based in Sierra Leone they rediscovered this coffee in the wild. As a high quality coffee that can grow a lower elevations (higher temperatures) than Arabica coffee, it has high potential to maintain production under a warming climate. Currently with support from Sucafina S.A. we have started the process of bringing this coffee into production.

Professor Haggar was previously head of the tree crops programme at the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Centre (CATIE) in Nicaragua where he worked for 11 years co-ordinating coffee research and development projects across Central America. He managed projects worth nearly US$10 million financed by donors such as World Bank, European Union, Inter American Development Bank, and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. These projects involved the development of sustainable agricultural practices for coffee production, business capacity in co-operatives, and assessment of the ecosystem services from coffee agroforestry systems. The projects contributed to improvements in the livelihoods of approximately 10,000 coffee producing families across Central America.

Prior to this, from 1996 to 2000, Professor Haggar was research co-ordinator in Mexico for the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) leading participatory research on the design of agroforestry systems as alternatives to slash-and-burn agriculture in the Yucatan Peninsula. Between 1994 and 1995 he worked as forestry co-ordinator for the Organization for Tropical Studies in Costa Rica evaluating native tree species for reforestation of degraded pastures. From 1991 to 1994, Professor Haggar conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Florida assessing how ecosystem processes affected agro-ecosystem productivity. Prior to this he undertook PhD research in the Department of Botany of the University of Cambridge on the effects of legume trees on nutrient availability to associated crops

• Walsh, C., Haggar, J., Cerretelli, S., Van Oijen, M., Cerda B., R., (2025) Comparing carbon agronomic footprint and sequestration in Central American coffee agroforestry systems and assessing trade-offs with economic returns. Science of the Total Environment 961 178360 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.178360

• Leiva, B., Casanoves, F., Vargas, A., Haggar, J. (2024) Changes in the economics of coffee production between 2008 and 2019: a tale of two Central American countries. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, DOI: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1376051 Lalani, Baqir, Lanza, Gracia, Leiva, Benjamin, Mercado, Leida and Haggar, Jeremy (2023) Shade versus intensification: trade-off or synergy for profitability in coffee agroforestry systems? Agricultural Systems, 214:103814, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2023.103814

• Jimena Esquivel, M., Vilchez-Mendoza, S., Harvey, C.A., Mayra A. Ospina, M.A., Eduardo Somarriba, E., Deheuvels, O., Virginio Filho, E.M., Haggar, J., Detlefsen, G., Cerdan, C., Casanoves, F., Ordoñez, J.C. (2023) Patterns of shade plant diversity in four agroforestry systems across Central America: A meta-analysis. Scientific Reports 13:8538 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-35578-7.

• Katic P., Cerretelli S., Haggar J., Santika T., Walsh C. (2023) Mainstreaming biodiversity in business decisions: Taking stock of tools and gaps. Biological Conservation 277: 109831 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109831

• Cerretelli, S., Castellanos, E., Gonzáles-Mollinedo, S., Lopez, E., Ospina, A., Haggar, J., (2023) A scenario modelling approach to assess management impacts on soil erosion in coffee systems in Central America. Catena, 228: 1-16, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2023.107182

• Van Oijen, M., Haggar, J., Barrios, M., Büchi, L., Cerda, R., Cerretelli, S., Lopez, E., de Melo Virginio Filho, E., Ospina, A. (2022) Ecosystem services from coffee agroforestry in Central America: Estimation using the CAF2021 model. Agroforestry Systems https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-022-00755-6

• Haggar J., Casanoves F., Cerda R., Cerretelli S., Gonzalez S., Lanza G., Lopez E., Leiva B., Ospina A. (2021) Shade and agronomic intensification in coffee agroforestry systems: trade-off or synergy? Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 5:645958 doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2021.645958

• Davis, A.P., Mieulet, D., Moat, J., Sarmu, D., Haggar, J. (2021) Arabica-like flavour in a heat-tolerant wild coffee species. Nature Plants 7: 413-418, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-021-00891-4

• Haggar J. Gracioli C., Springate S. (2021) Land sparing or sharing: strategies for conservation of arable plant diversity. Journal for Nature Conservation https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2021.125986

• Haggar J., Rodenburg J. (2021) Lessons on enabling African smallholder farmers, especially women and youth, to benefit from Sustainable Agricultural Intensification. International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability https://doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2021.1898179

• Davis, A.P., Gargiulo, R., Fay, M.F., Sarmu, D., Haggar, J. (2020) Lost and found: Coffea stenophylla and C. affinis, the forgotten coffee crop species of West Africa. Frontiers in Plant Science: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2020.00616

• Haggar, J., Pons, D., Saenz, L., Vides, J. (2019) Contribution of agroforestry systems to sustaining biodiversity in fragmented forest landscapes. Agriculture Ecosystems and Environment: 283 106567 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2019.06.006

Professor Haggar's research interests are focused on the understanding tradeoffs between agricultural production and ecosystem services, and how to facilitate sustainable agricultural development in developing countries.

He is interested in how sustainable agricultural production techniques can sustain ecosystem services and biodiversity. Using shaded coffee systems as a model he is researching the degree to which sustainable certification of coffee provides an incentive to farmers to conserve shade trees, and the degree to which tree shade offers services similar to a forest. Beyond this, a key question of interest is the degree to which the improved ecosystem services from sustainable agriculture (e.g. shaded coffee) compensate the larger area needed in production, as opposed to intensive agriculture, that produce the same on less land but may leave more forest.

On the second topic, Professor Haggar is committed to helping improve the livelihoods of poor farmers, whether in Central America or Sierra Leone, understanding what types of interventions could help farmers generate improved incomes, without destroying their environments. This includes how to develop and manage multi-disciplinary interventions integrating ecological production, business organisation and marketing of sustainable products.

Contributes to modules on Applied Plant Ecology, Agroforestry, Conservation and Environment and Conservation Ecology

Nature based solutions for climate resilience of local and indigenous communities in Guatemala, DEFRA/GCBC 2024-2027

Scientific and traditional local and Indigenous knowledge systems will be integrated in the design and assessment of nature-based solutions (NbS) to enhance their impact on the climate resilience and just wellbeing of rural communities in two regions of Guatemala. Local and national decision-makers will use guidelines and tools that integrate local and Indigenous Peoples’ values, knowledge and culture in the co-design of NbS for landscape climate resilience. Individual people, households and communities will be empowered to be at the centre of NbS planning and implementation through an enhanced awareness of the current and potential role of ecosystems in their lives and of the factors required for NbS to result in just and successful outcomes. The tools and evidence from application of this approach will be made available to inform landscape resilience planning across Central America.

Biocultural landscapes for livelihoods and biodiversity in Las Verapaces, Guatemala: Darwin Initiative (2022-2025)

The cultural and biological megadiversity of Guatemala is vulnerable to forest fragmentation and climate extremes, isolating highland endemic species and increasing poverty though landslides cutting off communities from markets and taking lives. In the Sierra Yalijux an Indigenous cooperative federation will integrate traditional knowledge and support communities including women and youth in agroforestry production and to become carbon neutral for the coffee and cardamon exports. Reforestation and forest conservation coordinated with adjacent private nature reserves will improve landscape connectivity for biodiversity, while building capacity and income from eco-tourism and provide a basis for receiving forest incentives by Indigenous families. A biological corridor is proposed as a potential co-management area between cooperatives and private nature reserves.

Conservation and use of native coffee species in Sierra Leone: Sucafina S.A. 2022-2027

Since our rediscovery of Coffea stenophylla with Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew in 2018 we have started the process to bring this coffee back into production with support from Swiss coffee trader Sucafina S.A. With our partners in Sierra Leone we have collected seed from the wild and established nurseries to initiate the production of this coffee. With Welthungerhilfe a network of plots has been established to test the adaptability of stenophylla coffee to different growing conditions. Our partner Coffee Culture: Sierra Leone is working with forest edge communities to conserve the wild coffee, but also establish nurseries and plantations to bring this coffee into cultivation. We hope the first plantations will have started production and small quantities of this coffee can be offered to market by the end of the project.

Sustainability-Intensification Trade-Offs in Coffee Agroforestry in Central America, BBSRC/GCRF - 2019-2021, Sierra Leone. 2013–15. Value: EUR1.4m. European Commission/Govt of Sierra Leone.

The research builds on a unique 20-year old coffee experiment contrasting monoculture and agroforestry under different inputs levels to evaluate a similar range of systems across 180 coffee farms in Costa Rica and Guatemala for their environmental and economic performance. The research brings together field measurements of productivity, use of light, water and nutrients with a coffee agroforestry model to assess carbon, nitrogen and water balance as well as productivity under different input and climate scenarios. The modelled outcomes will be used to conduct economic sensitivity analysis against climate and market variations. A trade-off model will be applied that integrates productive, economic, environmental and social parameters, and works with the variability in a population of farmers to assess the proportion of the population that will adopt sustainable or intensive practices, and the economic and environmental outcomes. Uniquely, we will apply this model across different market and climatic conditions to assess where sustainable or intensive production options provide greater resilience to these challenges. Assessments of ecosystem services (biodiversity, carbon storage, soil and nutrient retention, pest and diseases control) under different management scenarios will be used to identify how different management systems affect the environment and the coffee productivity. Furthermore, the ecosystem services assessment could help identify possible trade-offs between sustainability and productivity of the different management strategies identified in the two countries.

Leader of Ecosystem Services Research Group

• Member, British Ecological Society