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New Study Emphasizes Risk to Arabica Coffee Due to Global Warming

By: Alexis Rubinstein, Managing Editor - Coffee Network

 
Alexis Rubinstein
Managing Editor

CoffeeNetwork (New York) – A new study titled, “Vapour pressure deficit determines critical thresholds for global coffee production under climate change,” published today by Nature Food suggests coffee production will still rapidly decline in countries accounting for 75% of the world's Arabica coffee supply.

The shows there are global warming thresholds beyond which Arabica coffee production plummets. This isn't just bad news for coffee lovers—coffee is a multi-billion dollar industry supporting millions of farmers, most in developing countries.

If we manage to keep global warming below 2 this century, then producers responsible for most global Arabica supply will have more time to adapt. If we don't, we could see crashes in Arabica productivity, interruptions to supply, and price hikes on our daily cup.

Previous research has focused on how changes in temperature and rainfall affect coffee yields. While important, temperature and rainfall aren't the best indicators of global Arabica coffee productivity. Instead, the new study found that it's more effective to measure how dry and hot the air is, which we can do using "vapor pressure deficit."

Vapor pressure deficit tells us how much water gets sucked out of a plant. Think of when you walk outside on a hot, dry day and your lips dry and crack—the moisture is being sucked out of you because outside, the vapor pressure deficit is high. It's the same for plants.

The study built scientific models based on climate data that was linked to decades of coffee productivity data across the most important Arabica producing countries. They found once vapor pressure deficit gets to a critical point, then Arabica coffee yields fall sharply.

This critical point is 0.82 kilopascals (a unit of pressure, calculated from temperature and humidity). After this point, Arabica yields start falling fast—a loss of around 400 kilograms per hectare, which is 50% lower than the long-term global average.

Vapor pressure deficit thresholds have already been exceeded in Kenya, Mexico and Tanzania.

Unabated global warming will see the world's coffee producing powerhouses at risk. If global warming temperatures increase from 2 to 3, then Peru, Honduras, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Colombia and Braziltogether accounting for 81% of global supplyare much more likely to pass the vapor pressure deficit threshold.

While there are ways farmers and the coffee industry can adapt, the viability of applying these on a global scale is highly uncertain.

For example, irrigating coffee crops could be an option, but this costs money—money many coffee farmers in developing countries don't have. What's more, it may not always be effective as high vapor pressure deficits can still inflict damage, even in well-watered conditions.

Another option could be switching to other coffee species. But again, this is fraught. For example, robusta coffee (Coffea canephora)—the other main species of production coffee—is also sensitive to temperature rises. Others, such as Coffea stenophylla and Coffea liberica could be tested, but their production viability at large scales under climate change is unknown.

Alexis Rubinstein

 

  • Coffee

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