Under a moderate climate change scenario, half of the world's best coffee-growing land could be lost. Brazil, the largest coffee producer in the world, will see its most suitable coffee-growing land decline.
Scientists in Switzerland assessed the potential impacts of climate change on coffee, cashews, and avocados. Small-scale farmers in the tropics produce all three important crops.
Coffee has an expected revenue of US$460 billion in 2022, while the figures for avocados and cashews are between $13 billion and $6 billion. While coffee mainly serves as a stimulatory beverage, avocados and cashews are widely consumed food crops that are rich in monounsaturated plant oils and other beneficial nutrients.
According to the new study, the amount of land suitable for growing these crops in some of the main regions where they are currently cultivated is likely to decline due to predicted climate change. This could affect both growers and consumers around the world.
Coffee is made from a mixture of climate, land and soil. Grüter et al/PLOS, CC BY-SA
Most research into the future impacts of climate change on food has focused on staple crops such as wheat, maize, potatoes and oilseeds that are grown in the tropics.
Climate scientists tend to focus on the potentially severe impacts of climate change on temperate ecosystems, especially due to altered temperature and rainfall patterns.
More than 3 billion people make their living in the tropics, and as many as 1 billion more will do so by the century's end.
Climate change will shrink suitable coffee growing land.
The tropics are home to many important crops that provide income and food for their huge human populations. The new research confirms and significantly extends findings from previous studies on coffee, cashews, and avocados.
An important innovation in the study is to look at land and soil parameters in addition to the other factors. This allows them to provide a more nuanced view of future impacts that might change the suitability of some tropical regions for growing certain crops due to changes in factors such as soil pH or texture.
The new study is related to oil palm. Oil palm is one of the most important tropical crops in terms of human nutrition, helping feed more than 3 billion people.
Several modelling analyses of how climate change could affect the incidence of disease and overall mortality in oil palm were reviewed by colleagues and I. The conclusion was that tree mortality is likely to increase after 2050, which could wipe out much of the crop in the Americas.
The incidence of the major stem rot disease was predicted to increase across south-eastern Asia.
Some of the most grown crops in the tropics are beginning to reveal the surprising extent and complexity of the impacts of climate change. Some regions might benefit from climate change.
Parts of China, Argentina and the US are likely to become more suitable for coffee growing as land in Brazil and Columbia become less suitable. It is likely that many of these changes are locked in at least for the rest of this century, regardless of the disappointingly slow response of global leaders in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
It will be necessary for us to adapt to the changes in the tropics by shifting the cultivation of certain crops to different regions where the climate impacts will be less severe. Many tropical crops will become scarcer and more expensive in the future if mitigation measures are not adopted.
Coffee may move from a cheap everyday beverage to a prized treat to be tasted on special occasions, rather than like a fine wine.
Denis J Murphy is a professor at the University of South Wales.
This article is free to use under a Creative Commons license. The original article is worth a read.
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