British research report predicts: climate change threatens important coffee growing areas

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If you like coffee, there's one more reason to pay attention to climate change. Ethiopia, an important coffee producer, will be greatly affected if global warming is not curbed, and at worst nearly 60 per cent of the country's coffee-producing areas may no longer be suitable for growing coffee crops, a new study says.

Ethiopia is the largest exporter of coffee beans in Africa, and most of its coffee beans are of high quality. In Ethiopia, growing coffee crops is the livelihood of about 15 million farmers, and coffee bean exports account for 1/4 of the country's total export earnings.

Researchers at the Kew Botanical Garden, the Royal Botanical Garden, worked with their Ethiopian counterparts to speculate on the impact of climate change on coffee-growing areas in Ethiopia, combining remote sensing satellite data, field surveys and computer models.

The results, published in the new issue of the British journal Natural plants, show that if temperatures continue to rise and no response is taken, 39% to 59% of Ethiopia's existing coffee producing areas may no longer be suitable for growing coffee crops by the end of the century.

However, the study also said that if comprehensive measures, including the transfer of coffee growing areas, forest conservation and restoration, were taken early to deal with the threats, the area suitable for coffee cultivation in Ethiopia could be increased at least fourfold. The report also classifies coffee-growing areas according to the extent to which they are affected by climate change for reference by policy makers.