Stop Global Warming, or the Coffee Gets It

by Emily Gertz

categories: Food & Agriculture, Science, Social Entrepreneurship

Published August 05, 2009 @ 05:49PM PT

Need another reason to put the brakes on global warming? And get serious about the adaptation we won't be able to avoid? Here's one that's close to my heart, and maybe yours: preserving our morning cup of coffee.

Coffee is the world's most valuable tropical export crop, produced by around 20 million small-scale farmers, writes Peter Baker on SciDev.net, but no one is preparing to manage the probable disruptions to coffee agriculture. Hotter temperatures, longer dry spells punctuated with more intense, heavy rainfall and floods: these conditions (already noticeable in some coffee-growing regions) will spread in coming decades, as the Earth's surface temperature continues to warm:

Coffee grows well within a limited climatic range. As temperatures rise, so will coffee — to higher altitudes and latitudes. But space is limited and there will be competition with other crops...

Climate change already seems to be affecting coffee production. It is difficult to attribute direct causality, but the changes we are seeing are entirely consistent with climate modellers' predictions.

Sometimes the effects are slow. For example, 50 years ago, nearly three-quarters of Indian coffee production was the premium bean, arabica; now it is less than half, with robusta coffee (a species that withstands hotter conditions) filling the gap.

And sometimes the effects are abrupt. Mexico is still recovering from Hurricane Stan in 2005: "The land is very tired; it has faced hurricanes, winds, natural deterioration. Everyone here has a smaller harvest, less maintenance and less investment," Ingrid Hoffman, a coffee farmer in Chiapas, told Reuters in 2009. "I think one day we will be able to recover."

Coffee grows well within a limited climatic range. As temperatures rise, so will coffee — to higher altitudes and latitudes. But space is limited and there will be competition with other crops. Coffee farmers will experience climate change through greater unpredictability, with more droughts and floods — the last thing any farmer wants.

Climate change already seems to be affecting coffee production. It is difficult to attribute direct causality, but the changes we are seeing are entirely consistent with climate modellers' predictions.

Sometimes the effects are slow. For example, 50 years ago, nearly three-quarters of Indian coffee production was the premium bean, arabica; now it is less than half, with robusta coffee (a species that withstands hotter conditions) filling the gap.

And sometimes the effects are abrupt. Mexico is still recovering from Hurricane Stan in 2005: "The land is very tired; it has faced hurricanes, winds, natural deterioration. Everyone here has a smaller harvest, less maintenance and less investment," Ingrid Hoffman, a coffee farmer in Chiapas, told Reuters in 2009. "I think one day we will be able to recover."

This outlook is typical. Local organisations and governments are making brave efforts to recoup losses and return to the way things were, and attribute their problems to acts of God.

But are they right to think like this? Climate models suggest that things will get worse — but few stakeholders, including governments, international organisations, farmers, traders, companies or standards setters seem to be thinking ahead, trusting the science, making strategic plans, zoning the land, adapting or diversifying.

Science should be guiding their decision-making. And the problem is not just with coffee — many countries face a similar crisis in agriculture and land-use resource planning and implementation.

Singer makes an argument that will be anathema to some: The fair trade market mechanisms that have been used to promote a reformed global coffee trade, in which the growers can sustain their land, protect vital wildlife habitat, and get a living income from their crops, is perfectly unsuited to the global warming challenge. Only centralized planning and management, most likely coming from national governments, will help keep the world's caffeine fix flowing as the climate continues to destabilize.

"More adaptive, participatory research is needed to find out how best to help farmers, and there should be a greater emphasis on long-term research to develop crop varieties more resistant to climate extremes, pests and diseases. Neither NGOs nor private companies can hope to manage many such activities," Baker writes. "And there is an unresolved paradox: sustainability is about imposing order and stability, whereas climate change is about adapting and transforming."

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Image: Via Roasting Plant, one of my favorite artisanal coffee joints in NYC