"Coffee catastrophe beckons as climate change threatens arabica plant", 1st May 2015

Cultivation of the arabica coffee plant...is under threat from climate change as rising temperatures and new rainfall patterns limit the areas where it can be grown...With global temperatures forecast to increase by 2C-2.5C over the next few decades, a report[by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) under the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)] predicts that some of the major coffee producing countries will suffer serious losses... although some countries would be able to mitigate the “massive impact” of climate change by simply moving their coffee to higher, cooler areas, it was not an option for everyone...even those countries with higher altitudes were likely to find themselves struggling to make up for lost land because the needs of coffee cultivation would have to be weighed up against the preservation of forests, nature reserves and national parks...Coffee...is grown by an estimated 25 million farmers in more than 60 tropical countries, making it a key source of revenue for many developing nations...failure to find new and better ways to grow arabica would have serious consequences for both humans and the environment...Läderach [one of the authors of the report] said the challenges ahead were so great that they demanded the combined efforts of farmers, scientists, governments and businesses...