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Disease Outbreak Threatens the Future of Good Coffee
Wired reports on a disease infecting coffee plants across Central America that could lead to shortages around the world. "Regional production fell by 15 percent last year, putting nearly 400,000 people out of work, and that’s just a taste of what’s to come. The next harvest season begins in October, and according to the International Coffee Organization, crop losses could hit 50 percent." The disease is called coffee rust, and it has been damaging crops to some degree since the 1800s. It's not known yet exactly why coffee rust has become such a problem now, but one of the leading suspects is climate change. "Since the mid-20th century, though, weather patterns in Central America and northern South America have shifted. Average temperatures are warmer across the region, with extremes of both heat and cold becoming more pronounced; so are extreme rainfall events." The fungus that causes coffee rust thrives on warm, humid air, and higher temperatures have allowed it to climb to higher altitudes than ever before. But another likely cause is the way in which coffee is planted and harvested these days: the plants evolved as shade-dwellers, but are now often placed in direct sunlight. They're also clustered closer together, which facilitates the spread of disease. "The integrity of this once-complicated ecosystem has been slowly breaking down, which is what happens when you try to grow coffee like corn."
This can't be happening!
"The integrity of this once-complicated ecosystem has been slowly breaking down, which is what happens when you try to grow coffee like corn."
So long as we don't try and grow corn like corn, I'm happy, I love my popcorn!
Perhaps the issue is not climate change, but rather some evolution of the coffee rust..
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
Coffee futures are down, supplies are up. This is just another warmist scare story.
Sales of energy drinks will go through the roof.
The 'best coffee' in the world comes out of a cats ass i'm told...
So you'll pardon me if i really don't care what happens to coffee or coffee drinkers...
You're all some sick sick little moo cows anyway. Get away from me.
They don't call them robusta for nothing.
Why does every problem we face today come back to global warming? Oh wait, that is not the correct buzz word, because the planet is actually cooling, not getting warmer... I'm sorry, I meant "climate change".
Nooooooooooo!
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2013/04/the-day-coffee-stopped-working.html
MOD THE CHILD UP!
Finally, something to unify all Americans against climate change. Democrat or republican, poor or rich... It doesn't matter. We'll all stand together to stop this evil!
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
Screw gold, the USD, and bitcoins. Start hoarding cans of coffee
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
never heard of it
With all of the good coffee gone, they are going to make a mint.
Oh that's it, the spooks hacked the coffee now too, this appears to be getting personal... They say don't screw with 'merika's oil, but u screw with our coffee, that's just askin fer it... "Fuel the nukes"...
Not trying to be an alarmist, but this means substantially fewer LOC written in Perl and C.
There's a fruit store on our street
It's run by a Greek
And he keeps good things to eat But you should hear him speak!
When you ask him anything, he never answers "no"
He just "yes"es you to death, and as he takes your dough He tells you
"Yes, we have no coffee
We have-a no coffee today
We've string beans, and onions
Cabashes, and scallions,
And all sorts of fruit and say
We have an old fashioned tomato
A Long Island potato But yes, we have no coffee
We have no coffee today
Business got so good for him that he wrote home today,
"Send me Pete and Nick and Jim; I need help right away"
When he got them in the store, there was fun, you bet
Someone asked for "sparrow grass" and then the whole quartet
All answered "Yes, we have no coffee
We have-a no coffee today
Just try those coconuts
Those wall-nuts and doughnuts
There ain't many nuts like they
We'll sell you two kinds of red herring,
Dark brown, and ball-bearing
But yes, we have no coffee
We have no coffee today"
He, he, he, he, ha, ha, ha whatta you laugh at?
You gotta soup or pie?
Yes, I don't think we got soup or pie
You gotta coconut pie?
Yes, I don't think we got coconut pie
Well I'll have one cup a coffee
We gotta no coffee
Then watta you got?
I got a coffee!
Oh you've got a coffee!
Yes, we gotta no coffee, No coffee, No coffee, I tell you we gotta no coffee today
I sella you no coffee
Hey, Mary Anna, you gotta... gotta no coffee?
Why this man, he's no believe-a what I say no he no believe me
Now whatta you wanta mister? You wanna buy twelve for a quarter?
Well, just a one of a look, I'm gonna call for my daughter
Hey, Mary Anna You gotta piana
Yes, a coffee, no
Yes, we gotta no coffee today!
The new English "clark" (a.k.a. "clerk"):
Yes, we are very sorry to inform you
That we are entirely out of the fruit in question
The afore-mentioned vegetable Bearing the cognomen "coffee"
We might induce you to accept a substitute less desirable,
But that is not the policy at this internationally famous green grocery
I should say not. No no no no no no no
But may we suggest that you sample our five o'clock tea
Which we feel certain will tempt your pallet?
However we regret that after a diligent search
Of the premises By our entire staff
We can positively affirm without fear of contradiction
That our raspberries are delicious; really delicious
Very delicious But we have no coffee today.
Apologies to these guys
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
http://worldfamousdesignjunkies.com/food/rare-near-extinct-fine-chocolate-rediscovered-in-peru/
"Pure Nacional, with its complex fruit and floral flavors, once dominated the fine chocolate market worldwide. In 1916, diseases struck the Pure Nacional population in Ecuador and within three years 95% of the trees were destroyed. The prized chocolate was thought to be lost, until now."
Americans don't know what good coffee is...
Not trying to be trollish but what you tend to drink is nothing like a good coffee in Australia and no doubt in lots of other parts of the world.
"Not trying to be trollish but"
You failed.
Mono cultures seem to help disease spread faster. When one particular type of plant becomes very popular, well a large portion of the available farm land will be stuffed to capacity with that plant. Just like the flu will most likely spread faster in humans when they cluster together.
So from the fine article it appears that the spread of coffee rust could have something to do with the changes in cultivation practices. Or we could get climate alarmists all excited by blaming climate change. Reading carefully, it's clear that cultivation practices have a lot to do with the rust outbreak. But we can get climate alarmists all excited by blaming climate change. Woo!
No cause for alarm.
On the other hand, I might actually care if beer is in danger.
It's not known yet exactly why coffee rust has become such a problem now, but one of the leading suspects is climate change.
Here's another eye-rolling moment from the chicken littles who can't be bothered to decide what climate change is. From the article,
âoeThereâ(TM)s increasing evidence that climate change is part of the problem. You find coffee rust striking much farther up the valleys than it used to. Thereâ(TM)s no other plausible explanation,â Baker said. âoeBut what happened last year, and why it was so aggressive and widespread, weâ(TM)re still a bit [perplexed]. And if we donâ(TM)t really know what caused it, itâ(TM)s going to be hard to predict.â
Another plausible explanation, especially given the more virulent nature of this coffee rust problem, is that it has evolved or a new strain has moved in. That wasn't hard. Note that the researcher is confident that "climate change" is involved, but far less confident that biology is involved.
This is a researcher in the field making these claims not some ignorant Wired writer. I see this as further evidence that climatology has been taken over by political forces. A scientist makes an overly confident claim about "climate change" and it gets readily and uncritically reported by a high profile news source. And the take away that the reader gets is that their coffee is threatened by climate change. That's a classic propaganda move.
"Not trying to be trollish but"
Slashdot should automatically prefix that to every post.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Yup. Monoculture was the first thing I thought of. That's why we can only get bland Cavendish bananas in the US now, which rot before they will sweeten, instead of sweet, delicious Gros Michels. Panama disease killed off the vast majority of Gros Michel bananas and the Cavendish was selected solely for its resistance to that disease. Not for its taste.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
We've already got huge stockpiles of caffeine in the USA, right? So, the simple answer to this problem is to create an artificially coffee flavored drink that can be warmed up. All you'd have to do is add a certain amount of caffeine to it and VIOLA! Instant coffee!
Or we could just switch to drinking soda. That has caffeine in it, am I right? You also have a significantly lower risk of accidentally burning your vagina with a Pepsi.
Or I suppose we could just drink water, which is healthier than both coffee and soda, and doesn't have an extremely addictive chemical (caffeine) in it. But if you'd rather drink your ObamaCoffee or your ObamaPepsi, that's fine with me. On an unrelated note, why is bottled water more expensive than a similar quantity of soda or, in some cases, even beer?
Didn't beer and/or hard (apple) cider used to be preferable to water a couple decades ago because most American water was filthier than the stuff you could get in Mexico?
I never drink coffee because it tastes like disgusting burnt plants or something. Maybe since it causes headaches, high blood pressure, dehydration, kidney stones, teeth stains, etc maybe this is a sign that you all should stop drinking it. If not for your health, just walk into a Starbucks and see what kind of self-important, hippie, too-cool-for-you douchebags are there drinking $5 coffee imported specifically and purposely from somewhere you've never heard of and then reconsider your morning drink. I down some energy drink with TONS of vitamin B6 and B12 and no creatine or anything real harmful and 42 mg of caffine (1 can of most sodas contains 52 mg and one cup of coffee is usualy 70+). Then I ride the metabolism bonfire, anti-oxident happy train all the way to 5:00 lol.
Millions of people roaming the earth in a state that is neither alive nor dead. All in search of caffeine; not brains.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Been to Auch, FR, coffee there is exceptionally better than the coffee in the States.
The banana that many of us (at least those of us over a certain age) grew up snacking on now is extinct. As a result of a banana monoculture and an ever-mutating fungus, the Gros Michael variety of banana is no more.
Without the public noticing, around 1960 the Gros Michael disappeared and Chiquita (aka United Brands) replaced it with the much less tasty Cavendish variety. Well, actually banana eaters did notice that bananas had suddenly gotten less snackable but nobody gave a reason or acknowledged that anything was wrong. Eventually people came to accept the Cavendish while still thinking that bananas weren't as good as they used to be.
And now the Cavendish banana is going the same way as the Gros Michael thanks to the same monoculture farming technique. And there may not be a replacement.
If indeed climate change is a contributing factor, it seems that other climates may have been changed to be more favorable too. Is it possible that this will simply relocate the coffee industry rather than decimating it?
As the article points out, I'm wondering if farming techniques and the propensity to have homogenous crops are more to blame than climate change. True, temperature rises means that plants at various elevations are more susceptible to the disease, but the spread seems, in my opinion, to be more related to plants that are close together and of the same genetic variety. Its possible that if they spread things out and plant different variants that the problem wouldn't be as pronounced.
Of course, without coffee we may be unleashing the Zombie Apocalypse....
the statement is sadly true.
being a proud member of the minority. I demand good coffee!
I'd rather go without than get coffee at mcdonalds
Same for Strawberries in Egypt in the last quarter of the 20th century. The cultivar that was used initially was so sweet and fragrant, but did not keep well in the heat of Egypt and could not withstand transportation with heavy loss. Enter the current cultivar: much bigger fruits that look better, significantly harder, and almost tasteless, like the ones you find in the USA/Canada supermarkets. The older cultivar vanished in a year or two.
It was not disease, but yield that did it.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Ditto.
Part of this is also psychology. We're wired to dislike being wrong, especially in public - it indicates to others that we aren't fit for reproduction. Most people would rather dig their heels in than admit they're wrong (viz: any government official).
You first have to pop the person out of heuristic mode and into systemic mode. The easiest way to do this is to phrase the information as a question. Best is constructing the question in a "leading" way to encourage them to choose your side of an issue..
So for example:
"Would you support the ban on Child Pornography if it resulted in more children being molested?"
(CP being the most emotional hot-button issue I can think of.)
(For more info, "The Psychology of Selling" has a lot of down-to-Earth information on convincing people.)
Growing coffee in the current industrialized fashion (not organic growers) makes heavy use of fung/pesticides. Cofee beans after harvested and spread out to dry are sprayed daily with fungicides.
Maybe, just maybe the undesired organisms are getting adapted to the poisons, survive and hamper production?
It's big business for the chemical industry selling all that poison....
http://gawker.com/5823906/the-banana-apocalypse-is-coming
Not only the coffee got hit, Banana got hit too !!
The culprit is known as "Fusarium Wilt"
http://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/pub/php/management/bananapanama/
It's cool. Everyone thinks they make the best coffee and beer. It's a thing.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
...The US has nothing to fear, then.
Yes it is. It maximizes Gross National Happiness.
... and now I know that I won't be effected.
in that neither one exists. But I suppose good coffee is in the taste buds of the imbiber.
It's fine right? God please let the tea be okay.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
I'm sure in the Mesopotamian Gazette of 5000BC they said the same thing about corn :-) The question is what they likened it too. Weeds?
Yes, dear friends, soon heavy industry will make it possible for everyone to have their own coffee!
Monsanto wouldn't have it any other way.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
And there was a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices cried out in terror, then had headaches.
"Regional production fell by 15 percent last year, putting nearly 400,000 people out of work, and that’s just a taste of what’s to come"
Ha, ha, ha! Nice one!
No coffee in the alternate universe, universe full of very angry people. Coincidence?
It is not so much the climate change, but the mass production from genetically manipulated plants.
So.. blame Monsanto? ^_^
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
This guy's sig is evidently the way it is on purpose and you will probably just earn an insult (as I did) for trying to help him. So let's all cheer his great cleverness, and move on.
Great post. Shows how sheep-like people are, drinking Starbucks.
-- a Peet's fan
I come here for the love
Not a problem for me.
Global warming, redressed as climate change, is a scam perpetuated by grant seeking academics, non-profits and scientists. The reference to it in this article typifies a method of when-you-don't-know-the-reason point blame to climate change. Then at least your research grants have a chance of getting funded.
caused by climate change? seriously?
if you don't know, just blame it on climate change! its hip these days!
Who cares? I do not understand the obsession with coffee so many people seem to have. Whenever I hear someone say that that they can't function in the morning until they've had their coffee, I just look at them the same way I would a heroin addict.
This is why ecology needs to be a mandatory subject: a close-planted monoculture completely dependent on fertilizers. It's an extremely brittle thing. When you close-pack a field of crops, whatever can eat one plant has its next meal all around it in all directions. The growth rate is highly exponential. When you vary the plant life, the habitat exists for a variety of species that hold each other in check. Now we've got collapse and the prospect of a lot of tired, grumpy coders.
Wait, so millions of Americans and other Westerners won't be able to caffeinate their way to sensibility every morning, and might actually consider actually getting enough sleep?
That's CRAZY talk.
-Styopa
As long as we still have caffeine.
We still have caffeine, right?
Right???
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
They bio-engineered the disease in order to harm the global software industry by making it difficult to stay awake...
makes me glad I don't drink hot dirty water.
..and in the second year of the invasion, all Internet commerce ground to a halt - stranding most earthlings in their home-offices to starve.
Organization? You must be joking..
Since they all drink coffee, and if there are severe shortages, all functions will stop except those deemed critical.
mfwright@batnet.com
You can live without coffee. For example, stimulants are not allowed in the Paleo nutrition plan, so adherents have given up the morning cup. But, Global Warming is on the march. What's next?
Not matter what potentially bad thing happens, it is attributed to climate change. Makes me think the whole AGW/climate-change bit is PC BS.
When every one is buying the same thing, it must be a bubble..
Arabica bean prices are presently close to a 5 year low. If you believe this blight will raise the price of coffee, you may want to consider investing in the stock ticker "JO", which tracks the price of Arabica beans.
Grow your own coffee, indoors with fluorescent or LED grow lights. Fluorescent is cheaper in the short-term, which is a good way to start. Figure out how to grow the finest quality coffee beans, roast them, and have unusual bragging rights that hardly anyone will believe without seeing pictures.
Probably, step four or five is being investigated by the DEA. But if you grow enough 'coffee' to get noticed by them, then perhaps you are smoking something :)
You eat pieces of shit like him for breakfast!
If you drink Charbucks. They can just subsitute coal tar and there really won't be much of a difference.
Big problem if you like something else.
bad coffee?