With increasing pressure on farmers to improve the performance of their cropping systems, there is a growing need to design cropping systems that respond concurrently to environmental, agronomic and socioeconomic constraints. However, the trade-offs between ecosystem services, including provisioning services, can vary considerably from plot to plot. Using a typology of agricultural practices to adapt a conceptual model of the cropping system can provide an instrument to support the design of cropping systems that take into account the diversity of environmental and socioeconomic conditions and trade-offs within a study site. This method was tested to design coffee-based agroforestry systems mitigating soil erosion in central Costa Rica, a case study with a high-value crop in a complex relationship to its biophysical environment. The model showed that for some groups, less time-consuming erosion control actions not impacting coffee production might be more suitable, such as drainage canals, terraces, and vegetative barriers. In contrast, other groups had better socioeconomic or environmental conditions that opened the possibility of using shade trees or manual weed control (as opposed to herbicide use) to control erosion.