https://reasonstobecheerful.world/climate-resilient-coffee/
"If you love your morning coffee, this news should jolt you wide awake: Your
coffee is threatened by climate change. “The consequences are already
palpable,” says Sophie von Loeben, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute
for Climate Impact Research in Germany. You might have already noticed the hole
in your wallet, because coffee has roughly doubled in price over the last 10
years.
Surprisingly, though 130 coffee species are known to researchers, only two are
commercially cultivated, arabica and its tropical cousin robusta. They are both
suffering — arabica because it needs a cool climate, and robusta because it
thrives with specific amounts of rain. The International Center of Tropical
Agriculture has warned that half of the current cultivation areas won’t be
suitable for coffee anymore by 2050. This is about more than your cup of joe:
100 million people earn their living through cultivating, harvesting or selling
coffee, and the effects of climate change will impact small growers the most.
One solution is to foster more genetic diversity, especially wild coffee
species that are more robust and resistant to rising temperatures, droughts and
pests. In 2019, while von Loeben was working for the United Nations, she was
sent to Timor-Leste, an independent state formerly occupied by Indonesia, to
help local farmers develop a climate strategy for the drought. She fell in love
with the country and noticed that one climate- and disease-resistant solution
to the emerging coffee crisis was growing wild in the forests: Hibrido de
Timor, a spontaneous hybrid of arabica and robusta that developed naturally."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
