September | 2014 | Coffee Climates

Everyone is back in the USA! All of our field research is complete in our respective countries, Peru, Guatemala, and Colombia. The analysis of the research from all three countries will be conducted by our Coffee Climates group over the course of this next year! I would like to share some general themes that I observed in Peru! Any current observations about general themes are preliminary at best, and should not be taken as final conclusions.

Coffee farmers perceive the effect of climate change manifesting in many different ways. I see three issues appearing in nearly all interactions, with farmers, co-op leaders, and key actors alike:

1) La Roya – Coffee Leaf Rust Disease

La roya is sweeping across coffee plantations throughout Latin America; it hit harder in central Peru than in the north, where Cenfocafe is located. Nevertheless, the roya was a constant threat in Cajamarca and a bringer of paranoia amongst farmers and coffee buyers alike. Roya is a rusty-looking fungus that affects the leaves of coffee plants. Like most fungi, it flourishes in high humidity and warm temperatures. Thus, the spread of roya in Peru is attributed to the harder rains, mild winter, and in some cases, increased cloud cover. Farmers say that there is too much humidity build-up beneath the plants, and not enough “winds” to aerate the subcanopy (which can be a downfall in shade-grown coffee). If this disease gets out of hand, the coffee plant stops dedicating resources to its fruit: the leaves are struck with chlorosis and cease to photosynthesize, the plant may defoliate, and it may hurt the cherry production and ripening.
One way farmers and co-ops are strategizing is in seeking out alternative coffee varieties that are plague-resistant. These varieties, like Catimor and Gran Colombia, can withstand la roya but are known for producing coffee of lesser quality in cup. A question for coffee growers in Cenfrocafe, who pride themselves in award-winning high-quality coffee, is if they want to sacrifice their traditional quality and selling power to opt for this plague-resistant variety. Many cooperatives (and the government!) offer financial or horticultural assistance in planting the new varieties. A cheaper alternative is to “manage the shade”: pruning to opening up the subcanopy to let through more light and air movement.

Coffee rust + Leaf Miner Damage

2) Delayed and inconsistent coffee cherry ripening

Farmers cited that in the past the coffee cherry harvest came in three or four waves, when all the fruit would mature uniformly and bountifully. Instead, this year the harvest is early in some places, late in others, and moreover, not uniform in maturation. This poses a large problem, as every cherry is picked by hand and it is backbreaking work to visit a coffee tree several times to select the ripest fruit as it hits maturity. Some farmers estimate that they would have to revisit the fields for a harvest eight or nine times in the season, because of the strangely staggered ripening. Again, the explanation as to why this is taking place is said to be due to the irregular rains and mild winter. Farmers suggest that the coffee plants are “confused”; the erratic climatic cues are eliciting different phenological responses from the plants.
This is a two-pronged predicament – farmers must spend more money to have migrant workers for longer periods of time, while harvesting less coffee. Furthermore, many farmers live far away from the co-op that it is not economically viable to make the trip from up in the mountains down to sell their coffee at the co-op if it is a very small quantity. No strategies for ameliorating this problem have been proposed.

Non-uniform Cherry Ripening

3) Difficulty drying coffee beans

Increased rains, humidity, and cloud cover are leading to other coffee problems, including in the post-processing. Before coffee can be sold to the co-op, the cherries must be de-pulped, washed, and dried to a moisture level of 10-12%. However, the increased humidity has made this last step very difficult, especially when most farmers depend on spreading their coffee on tarps in the sun to dry. If the coffee stays moist for too long, it loses its high-quality value and is more susceptible to fungi and pests. Coffee producers may still be able to sell the beans, but at a lower
price-point to reflect the poor quality. The cooperative has the right to reject coffee from the farmer.
Fortunately, this is an issue that can be remedied, because it relies on improving infrastructure on the cooperative-level and on the farm-level. Building solar drying-houses, which essentially look like hoop houses filled with racks with screen-bottomed for the coffee. These low-tech solar driers keep out moisture, hold in warmth, and allow for airflow to efficiently dry the coffee. Several farmers we met owned their own solar drying houses, but it requires financial resources to construct one. Others farmers brought their coffee down early from the mountains to dry it in sunny Jaén, before selling it to the co-op. While we were working at the co-op headquarters, we saw dozens of farmers every day claiming every inch of open space within (and outside of) the cooperative grounds, laying their beans onto tarps and taking advantage of the warmer weather typical of the valley. Others farmers simply took their chances with the weather and bear the consequences.
Solutions offered by the co-op are material, loans, and education into how to build solar drying structures. Cenfrocafe is meanwhile looking at financials to see whether it can build a large-scale mechanical drying-house (i.e, with a gigantic fan and HVAC control) on behalf of all members.