BREW NEWS
RUST THREATENS LATIN
AMERICA COFFEE
Colombia
undergoes
massive plant
replacement
Coffee rust,
a fungus that
attacks coffee
trees and can
severely damage
or even obliterate
harvests, is
causing grave concern throughout Latin
America.
Costa Rica may lose up to 50 percent
of its harvest for the 2013-14 growing
season to coffee rust, according to the
nation's Institute of Coffee. Guatemala
may lose up to 40 percent of its coffee
crop to the fungus, according to the
Guatemalan National Coffee Association,
which has declared a state of emergency.
Mexico, El Salvador and Nicaragua also
are reporting severe outbreaks.
Coffee rust has been a menace to
coffee agriculture since the mid-19th
century, when the disease wiped out
90 percent of the coffee crop in Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka), forcing the island to
switch to tea. The disease appeared in
outbreaks in Costa Rica in 1980 and
Nicaragua in 1995, but use of fungicides
and other management practices kept
it in check. The current outbreak may
result from patchy, ineffective use of
fungicides, and it has been exacerbated
by excess humidity and warmer
temperatures in recent years, possibly
due to climate change.
Colombia is responding to the
crisis by introducing rust-resistant
coffee plants. The Colombian Coffee
Growers Federation, known by its
Spanish initials FNC, is underwriting
a massive effort to replace vulnerable
Arabica plants with a new variety, called
Castillo, that has been cross-bred to
resist rust.
The FNC is arranging seeds,
technical assistance and financing
to help Colombia's coffee growers
transition to Castillo plants. About
54 percent of the nation's coffee trees
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
FEBRUARY
28 – MARCH 2 Tea & Coffee World Cup Asia, Singapore,
www.tcworldcup.com/Singapore
MARCH
8-10 Coffee Fest New York, Jacob Javits Convention Center,
New York City, www.coffeefest.com
14-16 Café Asia International Coffee and Tea Industry Expo 2013,
Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, www.cafeasia.com.sg/
21-23 National Coffee Assn. Convention, San Francisco, www.ncusa.org
23-24 Coffee and Tea Festival, 69th Regiment Armory, New York City,
www.coffeeandteafestival.com
23-24 Southwest Coffee and Chocolate Festival, EXPO New Mexico,
Albuquerque, N.M., www.chocolateandcoffeefest.com
APRIL
11-14 SCAA Expo, Boston Convention &
Exhibition Center, www.scaaevent.org
11-14 Coffee Expo, Seoul, South Korea, http://coffeeexpo.info
19-20 Coffee Festival, Belgrade, Serbia, www.coffeefest.rs
25-28 London Coffee Festival, Old Truman Brewery, London, UK,
www.londoncoffeefestival.com
6
have been switched to Castillo, and
the goal is to have up to 90 percent
replaced in the next few years, says
Luis Fernando Samper, the FNC's chief
communications and marketing officer.
"We took a strategic decision that
we were far too vulnerable to coffee
leaf rust under the climate variability
conditions that we have been facing,
and that we expect to continue in
forthcoming years," Samper says.
STYROFOAM IN THE CROSS
HAIRS
More cities pass or consider bans
Cities across America are joining
the movement against the use of
expanded polystyrene (EPS), often
called Styrofoam, in food and beverage
packaging.
Nineteen jurisdictions in California
have passed EPS bans this year,
bringing the statewide total to 70.
About a dozen other U.S. cities also
have anti-EPS measures, including the
Boston suburb of Brookline, Mass.,
whose government voted in November
to ban EPS, along with polystyrene
bags, beginning in December 2013.
EPS cups are popular choices for
coffee because of their sturdiness and
insulating properties. Most paper cups
can't hold hot liquids without special
coatings, which usually compromise
their recyclability. But EPS is being
criticized because it is hard to recycle
and often tends to become litter.
The packaging industry is fighting
back, fending off an attempt at a
statewide ban in California last
year. But a spokesperson for the
environmental group Clean Water
Action told USA Today, "This is
catching on like a tidal wave."
