Could coffee be extinct by 2050?
Is it possible that coffee could be no more in 40 years time?
Extreme weather patterns are affecting your favourite beverage. Andrew Hetzel of Coffee Industry Advisors, spoke to The Weather Network about coffee rust and how it’s hurting production.
“There’s a large outbreak of coffee rust in Central America. This is a result of changes in weather. There was a critical time in 2012 when we had some unusually heavy rains in Central America which caused the fungus to bloom and grow at an accelerated rate.” Hetzel then went onto explain that this period was immediately followed by dry weather with strong winds. This allowed the rust to become airborne. The spores then travelled to higher elevations ruining coffee that had previously been untouched by the fungus. Once the fungus hits the plant the damage is irreversible. Hetzel did comment that pesticides can be used to avoid damage but come with a large price tag.
Across Central America production is down an average of 20%. But , some individual countries, like Nicaragua, are sustaining heavy damage of more than 70%. How will this affect North America though?
Hetzel commented, “There are two ways that North Americans are going to experience this affect. One is higher prices. Coffee is fairly under priced anyways, so really this is not the big issue. The bigger problem is more the quality. When plants are affected by the rust, the coffee they produce is not as sweet and there is the potential that some unique types of coffee may become extinct.” This will impact North America but the bigger problems are down south.
“The problem is, we are finding with temperature change as well as changes in rainfall, some places are just not able to grow coffee and that is a huge problem for availability of the crop and economically for communities to survive.”
Brian Khan from Climate Central in New York has been following the coffee story and also pointed out that the communities growing this crop are the ones in economic danger.
“People living in Central America need these coffee crops to survive, we have to think about the livelihood of these people, they depend on coffee to support their lifestyles. I was reading recently that food security in central America is a problem because of decreased coffee crops. There is now just less money to go around.”
Some people in Central America used to live in perfect coffee growing conditions, but with the changes in weather and extreme weather patterns, their ability to grow coffee is no more. They are now faced with the decision to move to where coffee crops can still be successful or change their own lifestyles.
While the rust is a huge problem for coffee, so is drought. Hetzel and Khan both commented about the drought in Brazil and how this is a significant loss in coffee production as Brazil produces the most coffee.
“The original forecast numbers predicted for Brazil at the beginning of this growing season was around 55 million bags (60kg each) total, including Arabica and a small percentage of Robusta. Now that’s somewhere around 45-48 million,” says Hetzel.
With rust and drought affecting this crop this is a prime time for coffee loss. Even though we are going through a struggle to yield as much coffee as usual, both Hetzel and Khan laughed at the idea of coffee completely going extinct by 2050. Chances are a fresh cup of coffee will still be on the menu.