How Is Climate Change Bound To Impact Coffee Cultivation And Production?

There’s not a single day where one doesn’t get to read about this great harrowing trouble of our times. It’s, quite simply, the bane of the mother Earth, the planet that provides us all with a humble abode. It’s pulverising, it’s threatening, and it is, by the tick of the clock, destroying the planet we have co-habited with joy and endless passion. When was the last time you didn’t hear about a major conference, television coverage or newspaper print report warning about the adverse effects of climate change?

Well, somethings are best left unsaid- aren’t they?

And now as it turns out, climate change is bound to impact the beverage the world obsesses about and perhaps can’t function without irrespective of whether one speaks of a weekday or the weekend.

Ever wondered about the adverse effects of climate change on coffee cultivation and production? What is bound to happen? How will climate change actually take a toll on a beverage that’s such a fresh kick-starter to our day, the very drink we joyously bond around with?

Well, here’s something that’s startling: researchers are of the view that climate change could make 50-88 percent of coffee-producing areas unsuitable. And these are places all around our planet.

But is that all? Furthermore, climate change will also lead to an increase in pests as well as diseases, the great nadir toward a healthy produce. The more there shall be diseases and pests, the greater the chance of coffee’s production and quality being affected.

If experts are to be believed then there’s never been a more urgent time than what one finds now to save the bean from extinction.

If you didn’t find it startling, then one wonders, what can be truly baffling?

That being told, a latest report published on Deccan Herald happened to share some incisive information with regards to this very telling development wherein it was mentioned:

Weather and long-term climate patterns are very critical for growing coffee. Temperature and rainfall conditions are the main drivers determining the yield, production and quality. Altitude is another key factor. Robusta is slightly hardier, as it evolved in lowland equatorial Africa, but grows well in areas with abundant rainfall, which should be well distributed.

The optimum temperature range for robusta is 24 to 30°C, but it is less tolerant to very high or very low temperatures. Currently, the annual and seasonal temperature and rainfall variability lead to fluctuations in yield in almost all coffee-growing countries, affecting supply and price.

What must be duly considered and perhaps isn’t is the fact that while on the one hand, Coffee happens to be such a dearly loved beverage, a daily habit of the world, on the other hand, it also happens to be the source of livelihood of many a people. Where will all of them go if climate change hampers coffee plantation and produce? What’s to become of hundreds of thousands of lives that depend on great coffee produce to run their households?

Here’s what’s most worrying:

Climate change is projected to impact all crops, including plantation crops. Changing climate and associated pest and diseases could adversely impact coffee-growing areas.

One wonders whether the fate of our much-loved drink is, in fact, laced with good fortune in the times to come?