Our first addiction is to oil, our second is to coffee. Now we have warnings that with climate change, we might lose both.
According to The Guardian , Starbucks is warning that the global coffee supply is now under threat. "In a telephone interview with the Guardian, Jim Hanna, the company's sustainability director, said its farmers were already seeing the effects of a changing climate, with severe hurricanes and more resistant bugs reducing crop yields The company is now preparing for the possibility of a serious threat to global supplies. 'What we are really seeing as a company as we look 10, 20, 30 years down the road – if conditions continue as they are – is a potentially significant risk to our supply chain, which is the Arabica coffee bean,' Hanna said. Hanna told the Guardian the company's suppliers, who are mainly in Central America, were already experiencing changing rainfall patterns and more severe pest infestations. Even well-established farms were seeing a drop in crop yield, and that could well discourage growers from cultivating coffee in the future, further constricting supply, he said. 'Even in very well established coffee plantations and farms, we are hearing more and more stories of impacts.' These include: more severe hurricanes, mudslides and erosion, variation in dry and rainy seasons."
Scientists are now reporting lower crop yields and that will hit prices. For example, between 2002 and 2011, Indian coffee production declined by nearly 30 percent. Coffee prices have risen by 25 per cent and that's just the beginning.
Gawker warns that soon coffee might only be available to one per cent of the population. Alarmist? Let's just see.
no comment untill now