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Climate change is driving and intensifying extreme weather in the world’s major coffee producing countries, endangering future crops and putting pressure on global prices.
“Coffee is the canary in the mine for climate change and its impact on agriculture,” said Elizabeth Shapiro-Garza, associate professor of the practice of environmental policy and management at Duke University.
“If you like your cup of coffee in the morning, climate change is going to completely affect the quality, availability and price of that cup of coffee.”
Brazil and Vietnam, the two largest coffee producers in the world, are both currently grappling with drought.
The drought in Brazil is the worst the country has seen for more than 70 years. He has also been dealing with wildfires.
Coffee is an unforgiving plant that is particularly susceptible to heat and changes in seasonality, Shapiro-Garza said, adding that extreme weather can also adversely affect the drying process for coffee.
The potential for supply shortages in both countries due to the weather is driving global coffee prices higher, according to a recent report by the Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics at the University of Sao Paulo.
“We are seeing fairly dramatic changes in what we would otherwise call traditional normal weather patterns, and these are having dramatic effects on the expected supply of coffee in the next harvest season,” he said. Sven Anders, professor and agricultural economist at the University of Alberta.
Recent heat waves, droughts and wildfires in countries including Brazil and Vietnam have been exacerbated by climate change, according to research.
Amidst all the factors affecting supply, the demand for coffee continues to grow, Anders said, which puts additional pressure on the industry.
Today’s Canadian coffee drinkers may not realize that the price of their morning cup is at risk. Over the past year, the average retail price for roasted or ground coffee has not risen much, according to data from Statistics Canada – about 1.6 per cent.
However, over four years, the increase is much steeper: 23.2 per cent between July 2020 and July 2024.
Coffee futures – a way of measuring commodity prices based on contracts for future supply – have been rising, Anders said, pointing to possible price increases to come as the industry anticipates lower supply on the horizon. The fact that Brazil and Vietnam are grappling with major weather events at the same time is likely to make the pressure more severe, he said.
“I think this is one of the first times we’ve seen climate change have a big impact on coffee prices,” said Adam Pesce, president of Oakville, Ont.-based Reunion Coffee Roasters.
“It’s a perfect storm of a scenario when you have the two biggest coffee growing countries in the world having the same kind of challenge in the same year. It’s never really happened before, and that’s why you’re seeing not only the price increase, but the pop being sustained,” he said.
“I would say there is a good indication that it will be maintained for a long time. But also, we probably haven’t reached the top.”
Ultimately those higher prices will be passed on to consumers, he added.
Efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change on coffee include breeding different, more resilient trees, Shapiro-Garza said. For example, he said work is underway to make coffee that is more resistant to roya, or “coffee rust,” a fungus that has become a much bigger problem as it spreads more easily in hotter weather.
Other ways to make coffee farms more resilient include diversifying crops and planting shade trees as protection, Anders said.
But it’s not just the crop that is increasingly vulnerable – it’s the farmers themselves too, many of whom run small, family operations.
“A lot of farmers are getting out of coffee because it’s too volatile for them,” Anders said.
Shapiro-Garza said more needs to be done to support coffee farmers so they can adapt to climate change and be less vulnerable to shocks in the system. This would not only help address price and supply volatility, but also reduce the risk of farmers abandoning their livelihood in search of something more stable, he said.
Between the effects of climate change on coffee growing land and the increased volatility it brings to the industry, “there could be less coffee in the world going forward if something doesn’t change,” Pesce said.
Anders said consumers should expect a near-term price shock in coffee, particularly from smaller companies that are less able to absorb rising costs – but in the longer term he expects overall prices to rise.
“This is not going to go away.”
— With files from The Associated Press
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on September 25, 2024.
(Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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