“Coffee is popular,” might just take the grand prize for the most understated truth of the era. Coffee isn’t just popular, it’s a global industry worth over 100 billion dollars and spanning every single continent. So popular that the myth of it being the second most traded commodity after oil was believable if not quite accurate. Coffee is definitely in the top 100 globally though and many countries owe more than 5 or even 10 percent of their economic foundation to the coffee trade.
Roughly 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed around the world each day and in many ways, we’ve created a coffee dependent work cycle worldwide. Can you imagine the impact that a shortage of coffee might cause? From the agricultural pipeline to the consumer pool made up of about 15% of the world’s population, we’d be in for a miserable awakening. It’s virtually unthinkable. Even so, a shortage might be exactly what we are heading straight for.
Coffee comes in a number of varieties and is grown all over the world with the bulk of it coming from places like Brazil and Ethiopia. These places have the combination of climate, soil type and precipitation needed to support thriving coffee variations like the very popular Arabica plant. However, in recent years, the necessary balance has been interrupted as global warning tips the scales resulting in lasting problems like coffee rust. Coffee rust is a fungus that shows up as yellow-red spots on the plant that eventually turn black and kill off the leaves and eventually the whole plant. It is horribly efficient and can wipe out entire farms of coffee plants within a few years.
Arabica is particularly vulnerable to the fungus but plants moved to higher elevations or that are using agroforestry practices to increase the shade used to grow the plants, have seen some resistance. It is thought that global warming will continue to increase the risk to these areas of higher elevation as time goes on but these are a few ways that farmers are pushing back against the global warming threat.
Another approach is the development of new or wild variations of coffee that are more resistant to the fungus. Right now several have been developed but are still considered lesser in quality to the more popular Arabica. They are also still susceptible to another big global warming issue: the threat of pests. The coffee berry borer is just one of the many pests that target coffee plants and though the plants can be treated, as we’ve seen in previous articles, pesticides have their own set of risks and challenges. The borer in particular seems to thrive in the rising temperatures around the world and is one more unforeseen consequence of the earth rising temperatures.
No matter what you personally believe about global warming, the challenges coffee growers are facing due to the increasing temperature averages in their regions aren’t going away. If you love your morning cup of liquid energy, perhaps it’s time to take a few personal steps to preserve it before it’s too late.