Coffee is a hard crop to please – especially arabica coffee, the most popular variety. And climate change poses a great threat to the coffee business worldwide and to farmers.
By 2050, “rising temperatures will reduce the area suitable for growing coffee by up to 50%,” according to the Inter-American Development Bank.
Coffee crops require specific temperature and humidity levels to grow properly – conditions that are currently largely met in certain parts of Latin America.
But the changing climate could mean some countries could newly accommodate coffee, the financial institution serving Latin America and the Caribbean noted.
Starbucks Is Working On Solutions
For coffee to keep thriving in existing hotspots, things have to change. Starbucks is developing new arabica varietals that are specifically cultivated to hold up better on a warming climate.
Agronomists at the company have been trying to find coffee trees that will yield a high amount of fruit in a relatively short period as well as resist coffee leaf rust.
After pairing dozens of varieties, Starbucks has landed on six that fit the bill and meet the company’s standards for flavour and taste as well.
A catalog describing the six new varieties is available for farmers at one of the company’s educational and research centres, Hacienda Alsacia coffee farm in Costa Rica.
Taste Like Arabica But Are More Resilient
Starbucks, which says it purchases about 3% of all the world’s coffee, relies on just a single variety. But arabica coffee is especially at risk in current times.
According to Miguel Gomez at Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, there is an “urgent need” to develop more climate-resistant varieties of arabica coffee.
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While other coffee varieties like robusta and liberica hold up better in difficult conditions, coffee makers tend to embrace arabica as consumers like how it tastes and smells.
Therefore, the goal now is to develop varieties that taste like the popular variety but are more resilient. It remains to be seen how swiftly Starbucks works on such solutions.
