STiR coffee and tea magazine

STiR coffee and tea 25 Suitable coffee growing areas globally and in main producing countries. (S1: highly suitable, S2: Moderately suitable, S3: Marginally suitable, N: Unsuitable) for current (2000) and future (2050) conditions under three RCPs: 2.6 (low emissions), 4.5 (intermediate emissions), 8.5 (high emissions). Expected changes in suitable areas are given as a percentage. RCP: Representative concentration pathway, a measure of the trajectory of greenhouse gas concen- trations.) on the Chalice itself. Finally cupped in 2020, it was rated on a par with high-quality arabica. Best of all, Stenophylla grows in warmer conditions — up to 6.8°C higher than arabica — and at lower altitudes. It is also resistant to CLR and drought. But its rarity, low yield, and slow growth cycle mean that it will take years, even decades, before it can be grown on a large scale. Meanwhile, Cenicafé, Colombia's coffee science institute, has been cross-breeding arabica with caturra to develop rust-resistant varieties. Cenicaf developed its first hybrid in 1980, which mixed caturra and another variety of Timor Hybrid coffee, which is an arabica/robusta hybrid. In 2005, the institute released its "Castillo" variety, followed in 2015 by a new hybrid called Cenicafe 1 variety. But the more the genetics are modified, the more the rust fungus has mutated over time, so the institute keeps working to stay ahead of the game. Cenicafé also evaluated 65 genotypes for water deficit resistance and found nine Ethiopian Coffea arabica genotypes and three hybrids of Caturra and Coffea canephora (robusta) that have their own built-in mechanisms for adaptation to water deficit. Brazil's Federal University of Lavras has been conducting CLR-infection experiments to isolate the most resistant genotypes. Big Coffee has also been kicking in. Nespresso contributed about five million trees to small- holders in Colombia, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Nicaragua for insetting — an agrofor- estry practice that balances a business's carbon emissions by planting trees within its supply chain. This is helping to offset soil erosion and loss of biodiversity caused by Nespresso's large-scale farms. But it is mainly small specialty importers and sustainability coalitions that are doing the grunt work — a topic to be covered in a later article. New technologies are increasingly important: Re- motely piloted aircraft (ARP), harvesting yield sensors, auto- matic grain classifiers, and re- mote sensing are being tested and evaluated. Precision agri- culture (PA) is one type of in- novation being introduced in coffee-growing regions, help- ing to increase output and ad- vance sustainable cultivation. Groups that provide PA training are urging govern- mental coffee agencies to support small producers' ac- cess to innovation. Represen- tatives of coffee associations such as FNC in Colombia and the many coffee co-operatives in Nicaragua and Mexico say that governments should pro- vide growers with more social protection and infrastructure, like access roads in remote mountain areas, and broad- band internet to allow farmers to keep up with innovations and take online courses. There are ways to sidestep disaster. Changes in growing conditions may be inevitable, but a collapse of coffee isn't. Connecting farmers with the means and the know-how to meet demand in today's key product segment — in the more profitable specialized, organic, and certified coffees — ultimately gives them an incentive to stick with this de- manding crop. Credit: Table and maps are reproduced from "Expected global suitability of coffee, cashew and avocado due to climate change," a study by Roman Grüter, Tim Trach- sel, Patrick Laube and Isabel Jaisli published on January 26, 2002 on Plos One, Public Library of Science. https:// d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 3 7 1 / j o u r n a l . pone.0261976 Courtesy of Public Library of Science https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261976.g001

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