Coffee Impacts: Socoeconomic, Disease, Climate Change, COVID

Photo by Zack Guido

"It took years to eventually manifest itself, but it was linked to changes in market prices. Coffee became less viable in the years following the recession; many farmers pulled back from their investments on the farms. And by the time the prices started to get back up, farmers realized that their farms were literally infested with this coffee leaf rust disease."

"I don't think many people realize how volatile the coffee industry is. It's extremely volatile. And any time there is a crisis, the people who feel the brunt of that are the smallholder farmers, the migrant and seasonal labourers who depend on coffee for a living."

"And thinking about poverty reduction and all of these issues, even though coffee is considered a high-end product, it is extremely important in sustaining the livelihoods of millions of farmers and farm workers across the Americas and throughout the world."

Kevon Rihney, assistant professor, Department of Geography, Rutgers-New Brunswick, New Jersey

"It's a plant disease, yes. But a lot of t he disease epidemic -- the massive resurgence of disease we've seen -- can be traced back to socioeconomic factors more than anything else."

"It's all a matter of getting resources and information to farmers. And when you don't have the infrastructure, you have these catastrophic failures."

Cathie Aime, professor of mycology, College of Agriculture, Purdue University

. Photo by Zack Guido

"30 to 50 percent of the plants were impacted; something like $500 million of export value was lost. And that rippled through the owners, to the labourers, to the exporters, to the coffee shops there and to our coffee shops." 

"COVID is just another thing that is added on top of it that exacerbates ... all of the other issues that they continually deal with. We can abstract this and think about, 'Will the coffee cup be more expensive to us'? But unless we're thinking about how that coffee is produced and the different challenges that people experience within the context of COVID, I think we're missing an opportunity to empathize. And really, we're missing an opportunity to correct what I see as an imbalance."

Zack Guido, assistant research professor, Arizona Institutes for Resilience

Climate change is threatening all manner of crops, and coffee is among them. Helped by deforestation and disease, including the devastating coffee leaf rust. There are no fewer than 124 species of coffee, yet only two among them -- arabica and robusta -- appear on the human menu. Arabica is by far the preferred brew across the world, but it is highly susceptible to coffee leaf rust, while the hardier of the two species, robusta, is less desirable. It has become clear that arabica is at risk of extinction, along with sixty percent of wild coffee species.

Dr.Rhiney and fellow researchers from the University of Arizona, University of Hawaii at Hilo, CIRAD, Santa Clara University, Purdue University West Lafayette and University of Exeter have reached the collective conclusion of the imminence of that threat laid out in a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. An industry that finds itself in a precarious position is facing yet another threat; COVID-19.

 

A coffee leaf infected by coffee leaf rust. Photographed in Rwanda

 

Coffee leaf rust -- a fungal disease which in the late 1800s destroyed coffee production in Sri Lanka now affects regions of coffee growth all over the world. Leading the researchers to examine the root cause of past outbreaks to more fully comprehend the depth of the present threat. What they discovered is that a host of socioeconomic disruptions linked to COVID-19 promises to result in new epidemics which would include rising unemployment, travel and mobility restrictions, alongside stay-at-home orders.

These looming epidemics, they predict, will in all likelihood be the cause of a crisis in coffee production which in turn will threaten the livelihoods of the approximately 100 million people employed in the global coffee production industry. Professor Rhiney drew on his previous experience on the impact of coffee leaf rust on Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee when he realized that despite much of the scientific focus on developing rust-resistant coffee variations and chemical fungal controls, socioeconomic factors have an important role to play in major outbreaks.

The Rutgers-led research team drew on recent studies of the fungal disease, which has severely impacted several countries across Latin America and the Caribbean over the last decade. Credit: Zach Guido

 

In 2012-13 the "big rust" affected coffee-producing countries across Central America and the Caribbean, and it traces back to the fallout of the financial crisis that gripped the world in 2008. Environmental conditions at that time hastened the presence of coffee leaf rust according to the researchers, an outbreak that was also reflected in the way that people managed their farms. Susceptibility to coffee leaf rust hits weaker plants more disastrously, the concern being that the presence of COVID-19 would add a similar complicating effect.

At that earlier time as a result of the recession, the established boards ensuring that coffee farmers were given access to equipment and information were defunded and disbanded. Professor Aime saw first- hand how farmers in Central and South America were afflicted by the damage caused through a lack of fungicides, spraying equipment and coffee leaf rust information. The knock-on effect was that many producers were forced to switch to other crops or leave farming, with households impacted when their quality of life was affected, with reduced supports.

At this timely juncture, researchers feel there will be a one-year lag until the full effects of COVID-19 are seen on the coffee industry, a fragile production chain whose impacts are not immediately apparent, yet can be long-lived. Volatile prices, climate-related impacts and biological issues are constant concerns for smallholder farmers -- representing mostly how coffee is grown, primarily on parcels of land less than five hectares, in developing countries.

The study concluded with the authors drawing a parallel between "essential but under-recognized elements of the process of production; human health, food security and sustainability". Their hope is that a lasting side effect of the pandemic will ensue; that individual health is linked to collective health and in the case of COVID-19, demonstrated in vaccinations and precaution-taking to limit the spread, while in coffee it means ensuring people earn enough income to continue their farming vocation.

"Our paper shows that coffee leaf rust outbreaks are complex socio-economic phenomena, and that managing the disease also involves a blend of scientific and social solutions," Rhiney said. "There is no 'magic bullet' that will simply make this problem disappear. Addressing coffee leaf rust involves more than just getting outbreaks under control; it also involves safeguarding farmers' livelihoods in order to build resilience to future shocks."

Kevon Rhiney, Department of Geography, Rutgers-New Brunswick

Over the past year, COVID-19 has become a new threat to the coffee industry by acting as potential trigger for renewed epidemics of coffee leaf rust – the most severe coffee plant disease in the world. University of Arizona ANews