With apolo­gies to Frank Sinatra – There just ain’t a lot of cof­fee in Brazil. Nowhere in the cof­fee lands is the impact of global cli­mate change on Arabica cof­fee so pro­nounced as in Brazil. The high plains, that have made mech­a­nized pro­duc­tion pos­si­ble and fixed Brazil’s place as the lead­ing cof­fee pow­er­house, have also become the source of Brazilian coffee’s vul­ner­a­bil­ity. Without nat­ural bar­ri­ers and micro­cli­mates that mit­i­gate the wide spread effect of weather on the crop, Brazil is increas­ingly expe­ri­enc­ing the pro­found effects of cli­mate change.

This was markedly rein­forced in February when an intense hail­storm swept across the Daterra Coffee farms in Brazil destroy­ing 300 hectares (741 acres) of ripen­ing cof­fee. Over the course of about 30 min­utes, this freak storm drove down the trees, ripped all the cher­ries to the ground, and pos­si­bly dra­mat­i­cally reduc­ing the poten­tial yields on those trees for years to come. 7000 bags of cof­fee were lost, about 10% of Daterra’s pro­duc­tion, dra­mat­i­cally reduc­ing the amount of high qual­ity Arabica cof­fee Daterra has avail­able for export and fur­ther exas­per­at­ing sup­ply issues sys­tem wide.

Never before has Brazil expe­ri­enced such a destruc­tive hail­storm in the cof­fee lands, and cer­tainly not dur­ing the dry har­vest sea­son. This event was just an ele­ment of an esca­lat­ing series of weather events that are sig­nif­i­cantly chang­ing the cof­fee sup­ply chain. Because Brazil is such a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor within the sup­ply chain, rep­re­sent­ing over 50% of exported Arabica, chang­ing agri­cul­tural con­di­tions lead­ing to sup­ply fluc­tu­a­tions carry imme­di­ate impli­ca­tions for global supply.

Dramatic and unpre­dictable fluc­tu­a­tions in weather con­di­tions have become increas­ingly com­mon as the global tem­per­a­ture increases.  Rising air tem­per­a­tures, ris­ing ocean tem­per­a­tures, greater fre­quency of El Niño events, shifts in rain­fall fre­quency, and shift­ing sea­sonal con­di­tions are mak­ing the pro­duc­tion of cof­fee much less pre­dictable. The goal is no longer to find a way to stop cli­mate change’s effects in agri­cul­ture but rather to learn how to adapt to the inevitable.

Indicators and effects of cli­mate change in Brazil and South America
The specter of drought in Brazil seems far-fetched in a coun­try that is so rec­og­nized for the Amazon River, but with increas­ing tem­per­a­tures glob­ally the deser­ti­fi­ca­tion of much of Brazil is a very real pos­si­bil­ity. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change pre­dicts the global tem­per­a­tures will increase by 3.6 to 7.2 degrees over the next 20 years, and that tem­per­a­tures will increase more in the Amazon basin. The Northeast deserts of Brazil are expand­ing rapidly already along with shrink­ing glacial mass in the Andes that reduces flow rates and atmos­pheric mois­ture density.

According to the International Trade Centre Climate Change and the Coffee Industry report of February 2010, in Brazil, “Rising tem­per­a­tures sug­gest cof­fee pro­duc­tion will become viable in areas for­merly con­sid­ered too prone to frosts. Meteorological agen­cies report tem­per­a­tures con­sis­tently above the his­tor­i­cal aver­age since the 1990’s. However, too high tem­per­a­tures will reduce the over­all acreage with cli­matic poten­tial for cof­fee pro­duc­tion.” Already, land once prime for cof­fee pro­duc­tion is becom­ing mar­ginal and areas that were not suit­able are open­ing up to pro­duc­tion, how­ever the lag in time between plant­ing and com­mer­cial yields may ensure reduc­ing yields for the fore­see­able future.

In a report from the ICO (ICC 103–6 Rev. 1) from September, 2009, “During recent decades, Brazilian cof­fee pro­duc­tion has shifted north­wards, away from areas prone to frosts and in search of more benign cli­mates. However, as a result of tem­per­a­ture increases and a reduc­tion in frosts, cof­fee plant­ing in the south­ern parts of the coun­try is once again becom­ing desir­able. As a mat­ter of fact, tem­per­a­tures con­sis­tently above the his­tor­i­cal aver­age have been reg­is­tered by the country’s mete­o­ro­log­i­cal agen­cies since the 1990s. Overall, sci­en­tists agree that, given the rise in tem­per­a­tures, cof­fee plant­ing will become increas­ingly viable in the south­ern states such as Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, for­merly con­sid­ered too prone to the risk of frosts. During the 1990s, researchers from that region began to notice how over­all agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tiv­ity began to fall. High tem­per­a­tures in October dur­ing suc­ces­sive years, when blos­som­ing takes place, pro­voked the early loss of flow­ers, are pre­vent­ing the for­ma­tion of the cherry in some cases.”

“According to the Brazilian Agricultural Research Agency EMBRAPA, a one degree increase in tem­per­a­ture could reduce by 200,000 square kilo­me­ters the cur­rent areas with cli­matic poten­tial for cof­fee plan­ta­tion. A three degree increase would remove a fur­ther 320,000 square kilo­me­ters, while a cat­a­strophic increase of 5.8 degrees would wipe out another 310,000.”

This same report con­tin­ues about Colombia, “Production costs are likely to increase due to new cli­matic con­di­tions favor­ing the pro­lif­er­a­tion of insects, plagues and pathogens. Thus, although many pests are nat­u­rally lim­ited by their present preda­tors, an unsta­ble cli­mate can alter this assess­ment and fos­ter con­di­tions favor­able to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of pathogens and insects, which will serve as Inoculums for epi­demics and epi­zootics populations.

For exam­ple, in the case of the cof­fee berry borer, drier envi­ron­ments may affect the pres­ence of the fun­gus Beauveria bassiana, reduc­ing its effec­tive­ness in inhibit­ing nat­ural or arti­fi­cial infec­tions and pro­mot­ing an increase of the pop­u­la­tions of this pest. Similarly, an increase of rain­fall dur­ing the year can coun­ter­act the restric­tive effect of dry peri­ods on the pro­lif­er­a­tion of pathogens, thus enabling the con­ti­nu­ity of a life cycle that oth­er­wise would be inter­rupted. The same effect can occur as a result of higher tem­per­a­tures. Continuous life cycles in organ­isms with high repro­duc­tion capac­ity may result in a rate of expo­nen­tial growth of their pop­u­la­tions and per­ma­nent dam­age to plan­ta­tions. Finally, the increase in tem­per­a­ture in alti­tude and lat­i­tude in moun­tain regions will allow the spread of dis­eases to regions where it was not present ear­lier. Likewise, pro­duc­tion can be affected adversely due to the inci­dence of dis­eases such as the cof­fee leaf rust, the pink dis­ease (Corticium salmoni­color) and rad­i­cal ulcers (Rosellinia) among oth­ers, whose pro­lif­er­a­tion is facil­i­tated by the per­sis­tence of rain and the occur­rence of a high rel­a­tive humid­ity in the envi­ron­ment. Water defi­ciency is not com­mon in most cof­fee areas of Colombia and thus irri­ga­tion is not needed. However, increases in aver­age tem­per­a­ture cause high evap­o­ra­tion, soil water losses and higher rates of per­spi­ra­tion, thus increas­ing water require­ments. If this were the case, many farm­ers would have to intro­duce some sort of infra­struc­ture for irri­ga­tion, inevitable increas­ing their pro­duc­tion costs.”

“There is no doubt that in the like­li­hood of sig­nif­i­cant global warm­ing, chances are that in some regions cof­fee plan­ta­tions would have to be trans­ferred to higher alti­tudes, seek­ing more suit­able envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions for pro­duc­tion. There is great inter­est in acquir­ing as much knowl­edge on the method­olo­gies and use of impact sce­nar­ios to allow the assess­ment of the impli­ca­tions of cli­mate change on the growth and devel­op­ment of the cof­fee sector.”

Possible effects of cli­mate change on cof­fee pro­duc­tion
Quality. As tem­per­a­ture rises, cof­fee ripens more quickly lead­ing to a fall in inher­ent qual­ity. This state­ment is sup­ported by the fact that low grown Arabica from trop­i­cal areas with higher tem­per­a­tures mostly shows less ‘qual­ity’ in the cup com­pared to the same cof­fee grown at higher alti­tudes. The beans are softer and may well be larger but lack that ‘qual­ity’. In this regard Dr Peter Baker of CAB International (www.cabi.org) esti­mates that if by the end of this cen­tury tem­per­a­tures rise by 3 °C (some experts believe an increase of up to 5 °C is pos­si­ble), then the lower alti­tude limit for grow­ing good qual­ity Arabica may rise by some 15 ft per annum, mean­ing that over time areas that are cur­rently too cold for cof­fee could become suit­able. But it is uncer­tain whether land at higher alti­tudes would in fact become avail­able (or be ren­dered suit­able) for cof­fee production.

Yield. If cli­matic events such as overly high tem­per­a­tures occur dur­ing sen­si­tive peri­ods of the life of the crop, for exam­ple dur­ing flow­er­ing or fruit set­ting, then yields will be adversely affected, par­tic­u­larly if accom­pa­nied by reduced rainfall.

Pests and dis­eases: Higher tem­per­a­tures will not only favor the pro­lif­er­a­tion of cer­tain pests and dis­eases, but will also result in these spread­ing to regions where they were not nor­mally present. Research sug­gest that the inci­dence of pests and dis­eases such as cof­fee berry borer, leaf miner, nema­todes, cof­fee rust and oth­ers will increase as future tem­per­a­tures rise. The con­se­quent need for more con­trol will make cof­fee pro­duc­tion both more com­pli­cated and more expensive.

Irrigation: Areas cur­rently not requir­ing this may do so in the future due to increased evap­o­ra­tion that reduces the soil’s mois­ture con­tent. Other areas may expe­ri­ence increases in both rain­fall and the vari­abil­ity thereof.

Adaptation is the only option
There is no doubt that the pro­duc­tion of cof­fee is under extreme threat from global warm­ing, and the prospect of devel­oped nations engag­ing solu­tions that mit­i­gate these changes is becom­ing increas­ingly remote. If cof­fee is to sur­vive the next 20 years in the robust fash­ion to which we have become accus­tomed, the indus­try must rapidly adapt and imple­ment sys­temic meth­ods to address cli­mate change directly.

Some of these may be,

•    Modeling and mon­i­tor­ing cli­mate and pro­duc­tion changes across all cof­fee grow­ing regions.

•    Identify areas of vul­ner­a­bil­ity to cli­mate change and areas of oppor­tu­nity for alter­na­tive development

•    Develop sys­tems of trace­abil­ity to gen­er­ate empir­i­cal data on cli­mate and quality

•    Pursue inten­sive pro­grams to develop genet­i­cally improved plants that are resis­tant to drought and disease.

•    As they are now doing in Brazil, more fre­quent cup­ping of cof­fee while matur­ing to bet­ter sched­ule har­vest­ing and reduce vul­ner­a­bil­ity to dra­matic cli­matic events

Climate change, whether a “short-term” cir­cum­stance or one last­ing for mil­len­nia, is none-the-less, real. The impact on a gen­er­a­tion of cof­fee grow­ers is mea­sured in years, not cen­turies, and not rec­og­niz­ing our chang­ing cli­matic con­di­tions is not sen­si­ble. It is no longer pos­si­ble to seek stop­ping and revers­ing cli­mate change, it is now nec­es­sary to adapt to the often-terrible con­se­quences in the best way pos­si­ble. Freakish events of weather such as the hail­storm in Brazil are becom­ing increas­ingly com­mon in the tur­bu­lent mete­o­ro­log­i­cal equa­to­r­ial belt as warm­ing global tem­per­a­tures con­flict with colder north­ern atmos­pheres. We are fac­ing long peri­ods of short sup­ply and vari­able qual­ity as the indus­try strug­gles to adapt to the chang­ing weather.

As Peter Baker, Global Director of Commodities, CABI Europe-UK said as the SCAA 2007 con­fer­ence, “The changes that cli­mate change will wreak on cof­fee may have seemed to be in the dis­tant future, but we can now see that this is a mis­con­cep­tion – changes are already under way and their con­se­quences must start to be tack­led now and in a con­certed fashion.”