If you drink two cups of coffee daily, eighteen coffee trees must be dedicated solely to your habit. It takes 100 beans to produce one cup of coffee. One tree yields about 4,000 beans annually. With 400 billion cups of coffee enjoyed around the world daily, it requires 100,000,000 trees to produce the coffee consumed globally in one year.
As are all trees, coffee trees are front-line environmental saviors as CO2 sinks, yet as global warming disrupts climates, coffee trees will die. Coffee production is expected to drop 40 percent in the next ten years. With 120 million people depending either directly or indirectly on coffee for their economic survival, researchers are scrambling to come up with innovative approaches in tree husbandry, breeding heartier varieties that can withstand the challenges. Unfortunately, except for the lucky few of wealth, as climate change heats up, our coffee consumption may have to cool down.
For centuries, coffee ceremonies have been threaded into the fabric of our lives. From Ethiopia to Los Angeles, almost every household begins their day with a ceremony, brewing a fresh, hot, aromatic pot of coffee. Italians prefer espresso, slurping while standing. Guatemalans prefer a light roast with a good pour of milk and a heavy hand of sugar. Some insist on grinding beans by hand; some reuse grounds three times. We meet over coffee to connect, spread news, and work out business deals. Coffee is poured to celebrate the birth of a child, to rejoice over a reunion, and to mourn the passing of a loved one. We spend big bucks on specialty equipment designed to drip, press or filter the perfect cup of coffee at home.
Coffee was originally found in the eleventh century, growing wild in western Ethiopia, when a goat herder noticed how frisky his goats became after nibbling a certain plant. Villagers discovered that steeping a drink from the seed gave them a mood boost and they shared it with their neighbors. Thus began coffee’s travel around the planet. Currently it is cultivated across more than 27 million acres globally. The top five coffee growing countries are: Brazil which grows about 40 percent of the world’s beans, Vietnam which produces 20 percent of the world’s beans, Colombia, Indonesia, and Honduras. Smaller amounts and specialty coffees are grown in Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, western and eastern Ethiopia, Mexico, Uganda, India, Asia, Indonesia and Hawaii.
Encircling the equator within the tropics area, 30 degrees south to 20 degrees north, the “coffee belt” historically offered reliably constant weather conditions throughout the year. Daytime temperatures rarely exceeded 85 degrees Fahrenheit. At night the abundant cloud coverage restricted heat loss and kept temperatures from falling below 70 degrees Fahrenheit. There are two seasons in the tropics, wet and dry, distinguished only by the variation in rainfall and cloudiness. Closer to the equator there are two distinct wet seasons, while farther away the two blend, becoming one.
Now, because of climate change, the tropics are expanding a half-degree per decade both north and south. Since satellite records started in the late 1970s the edges of the tropics have moved about 200 miles. It is predicted that in the next 30 years Latin America alone will lose up to 90 percent of its coffee growing land from higher temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns. The entire coffee growing regions of the world will diminish by 50 percent over the next 80 years. The planet will suffer enormous consequences. Thriving coffee trees are part of the primary CO2 sink helping to remove dangerous greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere but dying trees release toxic CO2.
Agricultural scientists are working diligently to generate a coffee tree hearty enough to live through climate uncertainty. World Coffee Research is one of various organizations aimed at breeding new hybrid tree varieties that are robust and disease resistant, but also distinctive in cup character. They are transplanting successful varieties to see which ones thrive in different parts of the world. A little progress has been made, but not enough to meet the demands of our ever-increasing human population.
There are two main species of cultivated coffee trees. The Robusta species has shallower roots, flowers less frequently, and tolerates warmer climates and lower altitudes. It is cheaper to cultivate, and having 50 to 60 percent more caffeine, is more resistant to disease and pests. This tougher species will likely fare better than others while adjusting to global warming. Considered lower quality, with less flavor and more bitterness, Robusta is used mostly for blends and for less healthful, less aromatic instant coffees.
About 75 to 80 percent of the world’s coffee comes from variations of the wild Arabica bean. These varietals are awarded the highest scores and garner the highest prices. In 2004, growers in Panama discovered on their ranch a Gesha variety of Arabica that surprised coffee aficionados by receiving the highest rating ever given in a green coffee bean competition. The coffee eventually sold for the highest price ever paid for an unroasted coffee, going at auction for $601.00 per pound, proving that connoisseurs of upscale specialty coffees are quite willing to pay more.
Typically, without the roasting process, most varieties of green Arabica have little variation in taste to the inexperienced palate. They absorb their subtle differences from the temperature, wind, elevation, and water in the environment where they are grown. This variety is sensitive to temperature deviations. A one-half degree temperature fluctuation at the wrong time can alter the quality, yield, flavor and aroma.
Today, with climates changing, hotter temperatures are causing fruits to ripen faster, degrading the quality of the beans’ flavor. Hotter temperatures also stunt the growth of the trees, cause the leaves to yellow, and spawn stem tumors. The dry season is longer, and the wet season is shorter. Coffee trees require about sixty inches of rain per year, and when rain doesn’t fall at the proper time, the coffee cherries go from green to black without becoming red and ripe. Often now, when the rain does arrive, it drops bombs, delivering too much water with less soaking into the ground, and washing away the rich soil. Ultimately, as temperatures rise farmers are losing their sensitive trees.
Coffee leaf rust, a fungal disease, is spreading. In the 2012 – 2013 seasons, after unusually high temperatures and high-altitude rains, Central America was hit by a wave of coffee leaf rust. This disease, unknown until the 1970s, spread so quickly through the highlands that more than 50 percent of the trees were affected. Columbia experienced fungus in the mountain regions where previously it had been too cold for fungi to survive. Guatemalan producers lost 85 percent of their beans. Crop damages amounted to around $500 million U.S. dollars. Nearly 350,000 laborers were out of work.
Pests are proliferating. A small beetle endemic to central Africa, the coffee berry borer was initially discovered in Central America in 1926 and since 1970 has spread to almost every coffee-producing country. Previously confined to below 1,500 feet above sea-level, more coffee growing regions are being affected as the insect is drawn upslope by hotter, wetter conditions. Since 2001, the coffee berry borer has caused a half billion dollars U.S. annually in crop damage.
Small scale family farms produce most of the coffee we buy, cultivating Arabica beans on one to two hectares of land. Environmental challenges are quickly multiplying for these farmers. Expensive irrigation is becoming necessary to prolong the growing season. Perhaps if they could move their farms higher up into the mountains they would survive, but along with purchasing new trees, moving their farms upslope requires new infrastructures be built. The cost is prohibitive and there is little government aid. It typically takes Arabica trees five years to produce cherries and family farmers simply do not have time to wait.
Coffee is the number one traded agricultural commodity. In the United States alone coffee brings in $110 billion retail dollars annually, yet farmers receive pennies on the pound for their coffee. While upscale connoisseurs are willing to pay more for specialty coffees, the farmers comprising the backbone of the industry can barely eke out a living. The same month that the Panamanian Gesha brought $601.00 per pound for green coffee beans, other farmers received a record price of $1.32 per pound for their “very good” quality Arabica beans. World Fair Trade Organization puts the interests of producers and their communities first and makes efforts to eliminate the middlemen, bringing more of the dollars paid at retail into the pockets of the farmers who toil to bring their produce to market. Their packages are stamped with the WTFO logo so buyers know their money will benefit growers.
The whole situation begs the question, should we invest in building coffee plantations where the climate will be hospitable as unpredictable weather patterns fluctuate? On the fringe of the tropics, a small group of farmers are doing just that. They are attempting to bring the coffee industry to a place where coffee trees have never been grown before, 18 degrees north of the traditional coffee belt. In 2002, detecting that the coffee market was willing to pay for rare and specialty coffees grown in new and unique places, Jay Ruskey planted his first trial stand of coffee in the shade of older avocado trees on his exotic fruit ranch in Goleta, California, U.S. The micro-climate in Southern California proved to be uniquely well-suited with warm days and cloud covered evenings. Employing inventive growing techniques, he experimented for twelve years with different varieties of Arabica. In 2014 Jay debuted his Caturra Rojo varietal, receiving high scores from Coffee Review, the standard of judgment for coffee tasters. In 2017 Jay started Frinj Coffee, Inc. The first 500-pound lot of Frinj coffee boasted a price tag of $18 a cup at distinguished Blue Bottle Coffee shops in the San Francisco Bay area. It sold out within two weeks.
To date Jay has encouraged and mentored over 35 partner farms in Southern California, planting over 50,000 trees. Their goal is to make Southern California the next specialty coffee capital of the world. With global warming weather patterns are arbitrary. Southern California already suffers from lack of water and scientists predict this area will become hotter and dryer over the next few decades. If not for irrigation already in place on the Frinj member ranches, it is doubtful coffee would do well there either. With the anticipated water wars, who can tell where water for the region will be sourced in the future?
However fleeting, the success of establishing a new coffee growing region might be good news for pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere, but will do little to alleviate the impending coffee drought the rest of us will experience as climates are disrupted. If traditional farmers can’t make enough money growing coffee and choose to sell their land to developers or start growing a more profitable crop such as corn, the environmental sustainability of coffee will not matter. What we can tell is, as coffee becomes scarce and pricey, wealthy coffee lovers may be the only ones able to afford the satisfaction of that aromatic cup of morning brew. Can I interest you in a cup of instant?