Coffee is perhaps the most recognised thing that humans consume around the globe after water. It is synonymous with celebrations and leisure.It is an integral part of numerous rituals of bonding and expressions of compassion that we indulge in.
Apart from being universally loved, coffee is also one of the most traded commodities after petroleum that nations have been trading for centuries. It constitutes a large chunk of exports for some countries that have a favourable climate for growing coffee, it's also a source of livelihood for small communities of farmers. Coffee accounted for $460 million of revenue in the financial year 2022 and is expected to grow at the compound annual growth rate(CAGR) of 5.3% in the period 2022-25.
But the most widely available and acceptable beverage that people resort to for seeking happiness, taming anxiety and even pain, is under the threat of becoming very scarce and unattainably expensive, or worse being wiped out from our farms because of climate change. Coffee grows in very particular tropical climate conditions, for a long time, climate experts and scientists have focused on crops like wheat, rice and maize because they constitute a large chunk of global consumption, paying less attention to the tropical crops which are now more vulnerable to the shift in climate. Tropics constitute 40% of the earth's area and more than 3 billion people live in tropical regions, these regions are expected to expand polewards in both south and north direction due to rising global temperature which may also be making coffee plants more susceptible to diseases.
Brazil, the largest producer of coffee in the world, has the most favourable climate for coffee and is expected to see a decline of 79% in its coffee-friendly farmlands. The major coffee-producing countries Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and Colombia are advancing towards low coffee growing favorability. Other neighbouring regions of the coffee growing belt either have abnormally long dry spells, too high annual rainfall or the temperature drops too low during the cold seasons.
Coffee plantations are very sensitive and intolerant to even small shifts in climate conditions
Coffee growing regions can be broadly divided into four categories, highly suitable(S1), moderately suitable(S2), marginally suitable(S3) and not suitable(N), taking into account the climate change predictions by the year 2050. The areas of highest suitability(S1) will decline by 60%, the areas of moderate suitability will decline by about 31 to 41%(S2) and the area of marginal suitability will decline by 5 to 13%(S3) and there will be a net increase in negatively suitable areas, primarily because of increase in the global temperature.
One possible positive outcome of all this can be because of the polewards expansion of the tropics due to a rise in the mean global temperature, some previously unfavourable regions will become slightly more suitable for coffee, but that's a rough prediction without taking into account the pH of the soil, steepness of the terrain, the texture of soil and the other complex effects that climate change will have, also growing coffee in places that are it may mean destroying forest important to biodiversity and displacing population.
Vivek is a writer who writes to explore. His interests include philosopy, psychology, poetry, cinema, mythology and international relations. Above all he’s interested in making sense of complex systems-how they work and influence each other. An alumnus of Calcutta University, he has a bachelor's degree in Physics.
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