By Diane Keeney
Death and Taxes Mag
March 11, 2011
As coffee yields plummet in Colombia due to unusual weather patterns connected to global warming, coffee prices will continue to rise. And maybe, just maybe, when their wallets are emptied and the caffeine withdrawal kicks in, the naysayers and the nihilists will admit that we’ve really done an irrevocable disservice to our planet.
Colombia is the largest producer of Arabica coffee in the world and the second largest producer of coffee overall. According to the New York Times, Colombia produced over 12 million 132-pound bags of coffee in 2006, aiming to raise production rates around 2% by 2014. Last year’s production didn’t even make 10 million bags.
While the country’s location on the the lush Andes mountains makes Colombia one of the prime regions in Latin America for shade-grown coffee, it also leaves the nation vulnerable to climate change. In the past three decades, the El Nino/La Nina-Southern Oscillation has passed through Colombia, causing an increase in temperatures and rainfall. The region is also prone to earthquakes, the most recent of which occurred in January of 1999 with a 6.1 magnitude.
As a result, Colombian coffee production has been suffering. In order for coffee plants to thrive, they require a very delicate balance of moisture and temperature. Recent, unpredictable weather patters have disrupted that balance, providing the perfect conditions for fungi, which normally could not survive in the cool mountain weather, to move in and ruin coffee crops.
Local farmers have been hit hard, some going down in production as much as 70%, leaving their families with little money for basic needs and little hope for the future.
In America, local and chain businesses have also been feeling the pain. The price of the Arabica has risen 85% since last June, and companies like Starbucks haven’t been seeing much profit.
Though the world’s coffee supply is dwindling, the demand is ever grown as emerging economies adopt the caffeine addiction. Some scientists fear that, much like the oil-crisis, the world is hitting the “coffee peak.” The immediate solution may be to expand coffee production globally, but growers will never be able to escape the destructive forces of climate change.
If polar ice caps melting doesn’t scare us into reducing our global impact and becoming more sustainable, this quote from the Specialty Coffee Association will: “It is not too far-fetched to begin questioning the very existence of specialty coffee.”
The Apocalypse is coming, and it will be very irritable and groggy.
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