Our coffee is sweating

Enjoy your coffee while you have it. Cause in the future a good cup of mocha will be harder to come by – and the cost will rise. Climate changes are demanding a great sacrifice.

Text and photo Christian Korsgaard, Central America / processing by Karen Clement

05. December 2011

The Danes are amongst the people in the world who drink the most coffee. If you’re one of them, we’ve got some bad news for you: The coffee is already expensive, bit will most likely become even more expensive. That is if you want good quality from Latin America.

Unfortunately the rise in prices isn’t due to the farmers getting paid more for their commodities. The cause is the permanent changes to the climate.

- Coffee can adapt to small changes in the weather, but with the speedy changes in the climate that we’ve experienced, and expect to see more of in the coming 50 years, the plants simply aren’t able to keep up, explains Norvin Sepulveda from Tropical Centre for Agricultural Research and Education in Nicaragua, CATIE. 

Out of the frying pan…

Sepulveda and his research team has looked back five decades in the local coffee records and in a, still unpublished, report they conclude that the rising temperatures not only will affect the coffee production in Nicaragua in the  future. It’s already affecting it. 

– In the lower, hotter fields, we can now see that production has gone down by so much as 30 percent. In the fields above 800 meters we can document a loss in 10-15 percent, says Sepulveda. He estimates that in 50 years around 60 percent of the Nicaraguan coffee fields will be affected by the climate.

– I want to stress the fact that we’re not saying that coffee will disappear. But it will be highly affected unless we do something in terms of research and alternatives, he says.

Out of the frying pan…

Sepulveda and his research team has looked back five decades in the local coffee records and in a, still unpublished, report they conclude that the rising temperatures not only will affect the coffee production in Nicaragua in the  future. It’s already affecting it. 

– In the lower, hotter fields, we can now see that production has gone down by so much as 30 percent. In the fields above 800 meters we can document a loss in 10-15 percent, says Sepulveda. He estimates that in 50 years around 60 percent of the Nicaraguan coffee fields will be affected by the climate.

– I want to stress the fact that we’re not saying that coffee will disappear. But it will be highly affected unless we do something in terms of research and alternatives, he says.

Huge economic losses

Around five percent of the Nicaraguan population is directly or indirectly dependent on the country’s coffee production and according to prognosis more than half the laborers involved in coffee production will lose their jobs. In numbers that’s around 150.000 people. 

– To keep food on people’s plates, tourism and fruit trees are other options worth considering, as is honey production, he says and explains, that two beehives alone can give a coffee farmer an increase in income at around 10-12 percent. That’s partly because he can sell the honey, but also because the bees play an essential role in the pollination of the coffee.

After a while he adds, with trepidation, since in Nicaragua you can almost get lynched for saying things like that:

– One COULD consider starting growing robusta. He quality is poorer, and I’m not saying that you SHOULD do it, but we’re in a situation where all options should be kept in play. At least we should consider generating hybrids, where we combine some species stamina with the flavor from other species. Nicaragua is one of the first countries in the world where something like this is being tested, but we’re moving along slowly to make sure we know exactly what we’re doing.

Smaller supply– higher prices

No matter how the Nicaraguan coffee farmers and co-operatives plan to handle the new challenge in the weather, it looks like the supply of quality coffee will be less. And that’s why our descendants can expect even pricier coffee.  .

– There’s no doubt that our grandchildren will be able to drink a nice cup of coffee in 50 years, that is IF there’s more shade for the coffee plants in the plantations. But more shade also means a decrease in production, which ironically means a better coffee quality, because it grows slowly in the shade and develops better. So if we’re able to compensate for poor production with a better quality and higher prices, we’ll manage, Sepulveda concludes and forwards the bill to the Danish coffee drinkers.