On a high plateau in the Gedio region in southern Ethiopia, Negassi, a man of about sixty-five years old, supervises a group of workers in one of his very own coffee fields. For half a century, our friend learned, perhaps by the way. The difficult thing is that there is no room for error. Those prized beans of Yergachev coffee must be exposed to a certain percentage of light, water, fertilizers and pesticides throughout the season, or else they will lose their distinctive properties and become just ordinary coffee.

Yergachev is not the only specialty coffee produced by Ethiopia, but there are other types such as "Sidamo", "Harar", "Nikmati" and "Limo", among the dozens of variations of the Arabica coffee plant (Arabica) in the country. It is considered the largest producer of coffee in the African continent. This group in particular is distinguished from others by being the finest by a large difference, and thus it is on the list of the most expensive around the world, but "Yergachev" and her companions are currently facing the largest disaster in the history of coffee, since it began to be used in Ethiopia before More than a thousand years.

In his interview with the editor of "Maidan", Abel Chimura, a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change Research in Germany, says: "4 out of 5 specialty coffee that Ethiopia produces will lose its ability to adapt to its environments in the near future, I am talking about the year 2030, He added that among these endangered species, "Yergachev" and "Harar" in particular have very high demand all over the world.

When news bulletins say that average temperatures around the world have crossed the temperature barrier, higher than the pre-industrial era, we think - as we sit on the couch watching TV or browsing Facebook - that it will not affect our lives, what would happen if the temperature in summer was 36.5 Celsius and then became 37.5, for example ?!

nothing.

But in reality, this misunderstanding of climate change is one of the reasons why people are not interested in the problem.

The degree to which you see it is easy does more than that, for the global environmental and climate system, of which a person is a part, resembles in its work a minute and very huge clock the size of an entire planet, each of its gears adapting to the other, so that it works in balance and calm, including It means that any confusion, no matter how slight, in this system causes wide waves of tension that affect everything else.

"The quality of coffee is strongly influenced by local climatic, topological and formative factors," Chimura asserts, adding: "Even slight changes in these factors will affect the final appearance and taste of coffee." In fact, specialty coffee is the first to be affected by climate change. Because it needs precise climatic conditions in order to produce the best possible ripeness, any adjustment in the temperature, humidity levels, or the amounts of rain it is exposed to is able to make it regular coffee, but even regular coffee will not be safe from harm.

By the year 2050, and even if we decide to start now measures to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it is likely that we will lose 49% of the coffee grounds around the world, the number will increase by 10% if the procedures do not start, and we mean here in the first place what is called By the "coffee bean belt" or the "coffee belt", which is the area between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, where the appropriate tropical climate is available for cultivation.

In his conversation with Maidan, Cao de Sousa, a professor at the Faculty of Agriculture at the Norwegian University of Applied Sciences, said: “Climate variability can lead to flowering too early or too late, and in both cases the plant may not have the energy needed to keep flowers, which leads by extension. The annual production of coffee has decreased, "he added, stressing that climate variability exposes plants to a greater level of stress, as this causes the beans not to ripen at the same time; This forces farmers to harvest more than once, which consequently increases costs.

One of the signs of climate change, of course, is the extreme fluctuation in the nature of the weather, as with the vibrations of the climate system, the weather faces a greater number and more extreme levels, from heat waves for example, as well as cold waves, dust and sand storms and droughts, take for example the historical drought that struck Brazil in In 2014, a third of the crop was destroyed, and this caused the price of coffee to rise by more than 50% in the following period.

On the other hand, as de Sousa explains in his interview with "Maidan": "The high global average temperature makes the coffee grounds fertile environment for many pathogens." And researchers in this area in particular fear diseases such as "coffee leaf rust."

In 1869, while Sri Lanka was a world powerhouse in the production of coffee, the fungus Hemelia Vastatrix that caused this disease spread in the country, and in less than 20 years it completely killed the country's coffee industry.

Spray an environmentally friendly insecticide agent to combat coffee leaf rust on coffee plants

In 1970, the same fungus appeared in Brazil and later spread to Central America and Colombia, causing countless disasters, and between 2012-2013, high temperatures fueled the major coffee leaf rust crisis in Central America, causing more destruction. Of half of the acreage acreage is coffee, and more than 350,000 people lost their jobs.

And in 2017, another similar crisis struck 70 percent of the crop in Central America itself.

Everything is affected unexpectedly, take, for example, what is happening in Ethiopia now, where Arabica coffee (Arabica) requires that it be planted among tall trees, whose shade helps reduce the temperature, sunlight and the amounts of rain reaching the coffee tree, when de Sousa and his companions examined the ten trees The first currently in the coffee and cocoa growing systems, as described by the editor of "Maidan", they discovered with concern that it is most vulnerable to climate change, as they found that the distribution range of nearly 80% of tree species in coffee areas will be greatly reduced.

But the most important of all is the impact of climate change on biodiversity. Although there are two basic types of coffee that are prevalent in the world (“Arabica” with better taste, and “Robusta” of lower quality but with more caffeine), thousands of species Wild coffee, which is not used for a commercial purpose, is a valuable gene pool of coffee's future.

The more species a species has, the more adaptive it is, because its genetic content is more resilient to climate fluctuations, and the lower it means, it is close to extinction. In Ethiopia, there is the largest concentration of coffee-producing species in the world, but because the country suffers from climate change problems, the numbers of these coffee-producing species are declining. Specifically, an intensive study published in January 2019 indicated that 60% of wild coffee species in the world are at risk of extinction, at that point you may ask: Will coffee actually disappear someday from our lives ?!

“I don’t think it will completely disappear,” Chimura says in his interview with Maidan, but he adds that “there will be permanent transformations in production areas in light of climate change.” Of course, some current production areas will remain more suitable than others for coffee production. New, more suitable places in places that were less hot before climate change, for example, many coffee farmers in Colombia have already started choosing areas higher than the previous ones to grow coffee, because the height of the ground reduces slightly the temperature, so it becomes as if the farms have returned to the natural climate Before global warming averages.

But this change will have a clear impact on the coffee trade, as the new areas may not contain the infrastructure required for coffee production, or they may already be used to produce other crops. Chimura continues his conversation with Maidan, saying: “The quality will definitely be lower in light of climate change. "It will be difficult to find good coffee, and it will be more expensive."

But far from the environmental impacts, and the quality of the coffee you want to drink in the morning, we forget something else that is not less important, because coffee is a trade worth 55-70 billion dollars annually, two-thirds of this trade comes from small farms (less than two hectares) owned by 25 million farmers around the world They all live in developing countries whose economies depend a lot on coffee production.

In Honduras, for example, a third of farmers gave up coffee plantations in just ten years, and in Colombia many farmers are turning to cocoa cultivation on coffee grounds, because cocoa cultivation has become easier with climate change, and even those farmers who moved coffee cultivation to higher mountainous places faced Major problems in the infrastructure of the new places, in addition to the fact that coffee trees need 5 years to bear their fruits, which strikes the farms with a gap of five years without production or return.

"In Ethiopia, for example, coffee exports contribute about a third of the country's total agricultural exports, more than $ 1 billion," Chimura told the editor of Maidan, adding that more than 10% of the total commercial land in Ethiopia is used to produce coffee. Pointing out that there is also a local economy of coffee that cannot be ignored, as Ethiopia is the largest producer of coffee in Africa. This means that damaging coffee is harmful to the economy of an entire country, and the matter is not exclusive to Ethiopia. All countries located in the belt of coffee beans are in consequence on the line of fire. Because climate change is hitting the regions on the equator more than others.

Several weeks ago, researchers from the US Space and Aviation Agency (NASA) announced that a recent analysis of temperature averages, taking readings from 26,000 places around the world, reported that 2020 was the hottest year by a difference greater than 1.2 degrees Celsius from the average, since the history of this species began. From the measurements of about a century and a half ago, which indicates that global warming is still continuing in an increasing pattern, and it seems that it will not stop soon.

These results came to raise 2020 by a very slight difference from 2016, which during the last period was the holder of this record, and because of the small difference, with the degree of uncertainty in this type of measurements, this year - in any case - lies with 2016 and 2019 as they are The hottest years in the date of measurement, in fact, the last seven years, basically, are the hottest years in the entire history of measurement, as for the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it accelerated in turn during the previous seventeen years, and by the end of 2016 it crossed the barrier. The 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in our human history, four hundred thousand years ago!

What de Sousa said at the end of his conversation with Medan: “I don’t hope that there will come a day when coffee will disappear completely from planet Earth,” adding: “There is still hope for coffee. Even with high levels of carbon dioxide, coffee can find ideal growth conditions. , And we can work on launching new varieties with local adaptive features and new genetic diversity. "

There are many very important research ideas proposed by researchers such as de Sousa, Chemura and others to save coffee, and most importantly to save its producers around the world, but it requires huge plans, more aware of the conditions and nature of climate change, and also requires international intervention to work to reduce the second puff Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but it seems to us that it is not happening.

Anyone can notice an astonishing disconnect between what is necessary to avoid the development of climate change and what has been achieved worldwide so far, and according to a study published in the journal Nature in May 2019, the reason for this is intense political pressure to prevent decision-making. In this regard, we have singled out a previous report entitled "The hottest years in history" ... because 2020 was not only the year of the pandemic! "This idea was discussed at length.

In the end, with the passage of time, it seems that you may go to your favorite coffee shop or store to buy a package of coffee you love, but the quality will not be the same as you used to in the past, prices will be affected in the future, and it will be difficult at times to get an excellent cup of coffee. On the morning of Eid, the worst of it is that there are others who live in the tropics who will struggle to get food in the meantime!

These people haven't done anything to cause climate change, they haven't emitted carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, they haven't run the fuel and power plants, they don't even ride in cars.

In contrast, there are only a hundred companies in the world responsible for emitting 71% of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and no one is pressing them enough!

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Sources

  • The Apple Chimura Study on Specialty Coffee (Nature)

  • The Cao de Sousa Study on the Global Impact of Coffee and Agroforestry (Nature Journal)

  • Christian Bonn's study of potential loss of coffee grounds by 2050 (Climate Change Journal)