Climate Change and Coffee

We talked a bit about the effects of climate change on coffee lands briefly in a blog entry in May, but the issue was given more attention in a recent article on Reuters.

“Climate change threatens Central American coffee” highlights changing weather patterns and how it affects lowland coffee growers in Guatemala who are dealing with unpredictable weather and diminished harvests.

The article discusses efforts to help families cope with the changing weather patterns and how they might adjust. A lot of it comes back to what Coffee Kids is all about. Early on, Bill Fishbein, Coffee Kids founder, realized that income from coffee is insufficient for most families. The key is to help create more vibrant communities by supporting programs in economic diversification, health awareness, education and food security.

If climate change continues unabated, millions of coffee-farming families around the world stand to lose out. The influx of people in extreme poverty could be staggering, but by supporting efforts like Coffee Kids, we can help encourage positive change.

So what’s being done to help farmers? I mean, you can see why poor farmers are enticed to grow illicit crops. Whether Colombian farmers growing cocaine, or Afghani farmers growing poppy, you can’t really stop them from doing what they have to do to survive.

I’m not sure how financially lucrative it is to sell coffee, but I watched a documentary a few months ago about the fair trade coffee movement and how coffee farmers are really in a tough spot.

Now that I found your site, I want to locate that documentary again and get more acquainted with what’s going on with these disadvantaged farmers.

Raza