Coffee Storm-will coffee disappear from the world in the future?

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Climate change affects the growth of coffee, especially the more sensitive arabica beans are more sensitive to temperature, temperature increases can easily affect pests, but also cause leaf rust, blight.

An outbreak of leaf rust in Central America, which produces high-quality Arabica beans, in 2012 caused severe losses to coffee farmers, some of them exceeding 30 per cent. Rising temperatures have allowed leaf rust to reach higher altitudes, previously invisible, and now nearly 2000 meters above ground, where it used to affect areas below 1500 meters.

Coffee farmers in other important coffee producing regions, including South America, Asia and Africa, have also witnessed disasters caused by global warming, such as droughts, heavy rains and pests, which have really affected coffee production.

This year Eco Green did encounter more coordination from long-term cooperative producer partners in coffee procurement due to climate change, crop failures or changes in harvest dates.

A new report from Australia's Climate Institute says extreme weather events and rising temperatures could reduce coffee production by 50 per cent, affect quality and raise market prices. At the same time, farmers who depend on coffee for their livelihood will also suffer.

Countries such as Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia and Ethiopia, which are important coffee producing areas, will have a significant economic impact in the face of a reduction in coffee exports, the second largest commodity.

1. Robusta beans, which are suitable for low altitudes, and arabica beans, which prefer high altitudes, are gradually moving from the equator to high latitudes.

2. Climate is becoming more extreme-severe droughts and showers, or hot weather affecting coffee quality and where it is grown. Producers working in extreme weather conditions are more vulnerable to disease, and food shortages have serious health implications.

3. The main coffee pests, coffee berry beetle and coffee leaf rust, spread from the equator to other areas.

4. The risk of forest destruction shifts to higher latitudes as coffee plantations shift. Biodiversity may disappear while greenhouse gas emissions increase.

Rising weather and showers have also increased disease affecting fields and crop quality. In an already hot country, rising temperatures increase the physical burden of labor and affect their health.

The report states that coffee production will move away from the equator and towards higher latitudes when coffee production is no longer suitable for cultivation, creating conflicts with other land uses such as ecological conservation or forestry. The report also predicts that wild coffee species may even be extinct by 2080.

Faced with the severe impacts of climate change, Fairtrade has developed a climate change response programme to provide financial and technical support to farmers to cope with and adapt to climate change.

Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua are key coffee producers (Eco Green also has Fairtrade coffee cooperatives in these countries), and Fairtrade International and the Finnish team are working on a project to help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change. Much of this has focused on assisting and training the more vulnerable women and youth, whose participation has strengthened the fight against the heat wave.

In Honduras, the project assisted smallholder farmers in eliminating millions of infected coffee trees and installed solar dehumidification equipment to protect coffee trees from heavy rains. Coffee farmers in Guatemala are learning to make organic fertilizer from local produce, reducing fertilizer use to mitigate greenhouse effects. Nicaragua trained 20 female-centred demonstration fields, where they learned to improve farming techniques and then shared the results with other producer organizations.