Poor Farmer

Kew quest to prevent coffee dying out Scientists are searching for a new coffee bean which can thrive as the climate warms, before the world’s supplies run out By   Sarah Knapton,   Science Editor Telegraph February 28, 2015 Scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew have begun a desperate bid to find a new bean of coffee which can thrive as the climate warms, before the world’s supplies run out. Currently, just one variety of coffee bean – Coffea arabica – is primarily grown throughout the world by manufacturers. But it cannot survive at high temperatures, and botanists fear that up to 100 per cent of current crops will be lost by 2080 if climate change predictions for global warming hold true. Now scientists at Kew Gardens in south-west London have begun studying the 124 other species of coffee bean in the hope that not only will they stand up to warmer temperatures, but also taste as good as the arabica variety. Launching Kew’s new scie...

The Conversation February 26, 2015 A Tacazze sunbird is a nectar-eating bird in Ethiopian forests,  one of the birds that can live and help sustain healthy habitat  on shade-grown coffee farms.   Photo: Courtesy of Evan R. Buechley via The Conversaton Your choice of coffee can make a difference for birds in tropical parts of the world — and biodiversity overall. In a  study  on coffee plantations in Africa, we found that coffee farms with shade trees are best for birds and that these tropical birds likely provide important environmental and economic benefits to farmers. Earnings related to the coffee trade were an estimated  US$173 billion in 2012 , making coffee one of the most valuable commodities. And for many tropical countries, it is the largest export. Coffee is grown on  24.8 million acres , mainly in tropical forest ecosystems, some of the most biologically rich terrestrial ecosystem on Earth. Agriculture make...

Supply Outlook Shifts as Weather Conditions in Brazil Support Healthy Harvest By  Tatyana Shumsky The Wall Street Journal February 10, 2015 Coffee prices tumbled to the lowest level in nearly a year on Tuesday as investors recalibrated their expectations for supplies amid signs that weather conditions in Brazil are supporting a healthy harvest. Arabica coffee for March delivery fell 8.20 cents, or 4.9%, to settle at $1.5940 a pound on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange. This was the lowest close since Feb. 18, 2014, and the biggest one-day percentage drop since Nov. 21. The weather in Brazil has been better than some investors had expected. Intermittent rainfall is keeping coffee trees hydrated and on track for a healthy crop, said James Cordier, president of Liberty Trading Group in Tampa, Fla. Brazil is the source of roughly half of the world’s arabica beans, a type of coffee prized for its mild flavor. Some investors had been betting on a repeat of 2014, w...

A new study found high biodiversity on traditional coffee farms. By Brian Clark Howard National Geographic February 4, 2015 Birds such as the blue-breasted bee-eater can be found on Ethiopia's shade coffee farms. PHOTOGRAPH BY CAGAN SEKERCIOGLU, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE Shady coffee plantations in   Ethiopia , where   coffee   has been grown for at least a thousand years, hold more bird species than any other coffee farms in the world, new research shows. The research suggests that traditional cultivation practices there support better bird biodiversity than any other coffee farms in the world. In Ethiopia, coffee is traditionally grown on plantations shaded by native trees. These farms boasted more than 2.5 times as many bird species as adjacent mountain forest, according to a study slated for publication February 11 in the   journal  Biological Conservation . "That was a surprise," says study co-author  Cagan H. Se...

By James Jeffrey Japan Times February 3, 2015 Aromatic: Naomi Nakahira, of Ueshima Coffee Co., evaluates coffees  produced  from Belete-Gera Forest coffee beans. | JAMES JEFFREY  JIMMA, ETHIOPIA – On a typically sunny January day in southwestern Ethiopia, smallholder coffee farmers gather beneath red, blue and orange canvases, propped up by wooden stakes, to watch and participate in a coffee-tasting competition with demanding Japanese standards. Naomi Nakahira, a coffee adviser with Ueshima Coffee Co. (UCC), one of Japan’s biggest coffee companies, smells and slurps his way, along with three internationally qualified Ethiopian cuppers, through a selection of the farmers’ natural forest coffees, marking them for aroma, taste and the like. The majority score 80 or above out of 100 — enough to be classified as specialty coffee. This February, commuters on the Tokaido Shinkansen, running between Osaka and Tokyo, can pass their own judgment on the p...

NPR January 28, 2015 K-Cups You want a cup of decaf. Your significant other is craving the fully caffeinated stuff. With the simple push of a button, Keurig's single-serving K-Cup coffee pods can make both of you happy. But those convenient little plastic pods can pile up quickly, and they're not recyclable. And that's created a monster of an environmental mess, says Mike Hachey. Literally. Hachey is CEO of Egg Studios, a video production company based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Earlier this month, his firm released a 2 1/2-minute  mock horror film  featuring a giant, Godzilla-like creature constructed entirely of K-Cups. It's a slick little film in the found-footage style of movies like Cloverfield  and  The Blair Witch Project . And it's got the usual Hollywood tropes of the genre: big explosions, pedestrians fleeing in terror, an aerial onslaught of K-Cup projectiles, soldiers shooting blindly at the enemy. The point, says Hachey, is ...

  RT News January 25, 2015 Coffee contains a protein that has an effect similar to morphine, specialists at the University of Brasilia and Brazilian agriculture research company Embrapa have discovered. Moreover, the new substance’s effect lasts longer. The research was conducted by Felipe Vinecky of the Molecular Biology Department at the University of Brasilia (UnB) in cooperation with the Genetics and Biotechnology Division of state owned agriculture and livestock research company Embrapa. The research involved searching for and combining coffee genes to affect quality. In the course of study, the scientists managed to find new substances in the product. While analyzing the coffee genome sequence and corresponding proteins, Vinecky and his research adviser Carlos Bloch Junior found some proteins similar to those typical for humans. So they decided to synthesize their structural analogues and test their properties. The researchers   "identified previou...