EL CARMEN DE VIBORAL, Colombia — One of the world’s favorite drinks is in dire straits. As demand for coffee increases, producers are struggling to keep up. Put simply, as climate change increases temperatures worldwide and contributes to increased volatility in key growth factors like rainfall, droughts and tropical storms, the amount of land that is suitable for growing the highly-coveted fruit is dwindling. One producer country that is feeling the effects of the coffee crisis quite acutely is Mexico. The Mexican coffee crisis requires urgent solutions as a large portion of the population relies on coffee for their livelihoods.
Mexican Coffee Regions
There are several coffee-growing regions in Mexico with the
largest existing in three states: Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz. They also happen to be the first, third and
fourth most impoverished states in the country respectively. As much as 76.4% of the Chiapas population live in poverty and a third of this group live in extreme poverty. The coffee producers of these regions have been far from immune to the harsh economic realities in southern Mexico.
History of Coffee in Mexico
The year 1973 brought coffee farmers much-needed assistance in the form of the
National Coffee Institute of Mexico (INMECAFE). The creation of INMECAFE served to financially and technically support coffee producers. Before INMECAFE, producers had to fend for themselves and large “haciendas” dominated the Mexican coffee industry.
INMECAFE facilitated a shift, although with a relatively short lifespan. Small-scale coffee plantations became far more prevalent. The institute saw huge growth in coffee production within Mexico until the economy worsened, and by 1989, government support evaporated along with INMECAFE.
This was coupled with the failed 1989
International Coffee Agreement which had previously maintained a minimum price for exporting the bean. With INMECAFE gone, predatory coffee brokers swooped in and took advantage of the weakened state of the small-scale farmers, exploiting them with unfair compensation. Eventually, coffee cooperatives developed to replace of the role of INMECAFE and save farmers from exploitation. Today, co-ops provide crucial help to Mexican coffee farmers as they face their latest challenge: climate change.
A Rising Tide
Should the trend in rising temperatures hold, the world will
lose half of the total land suitable for growing coffee by 2050. That will mean fewer jobs, higher prices and an economic blow to the coffee industry, which contains “the
second most valuable commodity exported by developing countries.” Climate change inflicts damage beyond just shrinking the amount of agriculturally productive land. It brings about increased risks from pests and diseases like
coffee leaf rust.
Coffee Rust
Climate change exacerbates the coffee rust epidemic (La Roya in Spanish). The fungus is not just a Mexican problem. It presents itself in every coffee-producing nation. The Mexican coffee industry already weathered a coffee rust epidemic between
2012 and 2013. During the period,
70% of farms were affected with more than 1.7 million coffee workers losing their jobs within the wider Central American region. The fungus kills the leaves of coffee trees and survives better in higher temperatures. Rising temperatures will encourage the fungal spread. This will only exacerbate the Mexican coffee crisis.
Diversifying the Bean
There are ways to combat coffee rust and global warming as a whole. Currently, there are more than
120 known coffee species in the world. The vast majority grow in the wild and are never cultivated. The principal two that do eventually make it into a cup are Robusta (Coffea canephora) and Arabica (Coffea arabica). Other species are being interbred with the two but this process needs to be accelerated with more research. With more species being interbred,
hybrid coffee trees can be produced that are more resistant to coffee rust, more resilient in the face of rising temperatures and more capable of surviving erratic rain patterns.
Enter the F1 Hybrid
These relatively new varieties of mixed coffee species are being lauded as the future saviors of coffee. They offer an impressive
array of benefits from, “higher yields to wider climate adaptability, to resilience in the face of stresses like disease (e.g. coffee rust), frost or drought.”
The NGO, World Coffee Research, is working to improve and prepare new “F1 hybrid” varieties in the hopes of dispatching the new breeds to Central America and Africa by 2025. The clock, however, is ticking faster as climate change and other factors threaten to render an estimated
60% of coffee species extinct unless immediate action is taken.
Neighbors Provide Solutions
Mexico can also turn to policy solutions, looking to the example of other nations like Colombia, Peru and Costa Rica. In Colombia, the government allocated roughly $62 million as a reserve or price stabilization fund to protect farmers against international market fluctuations. Peru enacted the National Coffee Action Plan in 2018 to address the coffee crisis. It represents a multi-faceted strategy to achieve increased exports, better economic livelihood for producers and several other crucial goals by 2030. Finally, Costa Rica receives consistent praise as a standard-bearer in sustainable, equitable coffee production. The Costa Rica Coffee Institute (ICAFE) boasts an impressive resume of defending, “those in the coffee sector, right down to the largely immigrant, largely Nicaraguan pickers.” None of these countries have a perfect recipe for resolving the Mexican coffee crisis but borrowing from the successes of its neighbors will certainly improve Mexico’s prospects in the years to come.
– Scott Mistler-Ferguson
Photo: Flickr
