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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."
Monsanto Coffee. A new Starbucks option. Kills the rust. Only problem: turns coffee blue.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
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.
Actually, as someone whose family has owned coffee farms for over 100 years let me clue you in.
Traditional coffee plants can last 20 years, they grow tall, shade the ground, and drop the leaves to fertilize the soil, have root systems that keep the soil in place, since coffee is grown in steppes.
However, they are hybribs created in Brazil, that grow faster, less root systems, but need constant fertilization, and the root systems are shallow, causing run off of the soil, lower quality bean, But they produce like hell. But the constant fertilization they need ruins the land.
They are also highly susceptible to root rust.
It is not so much the climate change, but the mass production from genetically manipulated plants.
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."
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.
This is just another warmist scare story.
The last time CO2 levels were at 400ppm was a very long time ago, way before neanderthals, at the time of homo erectus. Maybe it's not unreasonable to worry.
Why worry? First - the neanderthals are extinct, second - they didn't drink coffee.
(ducks)
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
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
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.
It may be both: evolution of the coffee rust driven by climate change.
Or it could be a lack of genetic diversity in the coffee trees. The fungus can spread through vast plantations of genetically similar arabica trees. The reason the rust has difficulty infecting wild trees may be because of their diversity, as well as their dispersion.
Disclaimer: I am a tea drinker.
Why does ever bible thumper consider it a bad thing to change ones mind about something in light of new data?
Why does everyone else do that too? I guess because we've evolved not to readily change our minds. Maybe it was bad for us if we changed our minds too much about saber-tooth tigers or poisonous plants. "I think poison ivy changed due to a dream vision I had last night. Let's roll in it!"
I find it remarkable how anti-scientific some of the attitudes among the supposedly pro-science side are. Here, you are complaining about "bible thumpers" merely because they exhibit a universal human behavior.
As to your "data", I think it's painfully clear that the researcher (who was quoted on the climate change allegation) is tying coffee rust to climate change in order to sell their story and attract funding rather than tell a more plausible story. Where is the discussion of evolution of coffee rust, bad farming practices, and the presence of more susceptible coffee plants (they need not be at the same farm as the "fine coffee" plants)?
You clearly can't tell good coffee from bad coffee. My pet civet could teach you a few things.
So angry! You should cut your coffee consumption.
Yet another problem with java.
They have some [good coffee] you can buy there, jackass.
Really? Name it. You'll be hard-pressed to find a single bean in a Starbucks that hasn't been intentionally over-roasted as part of their standard business practice. As should be obvious, the result of over-roasting is that your beans will give you a burnt ash flavor rather than a rich, nuanced coffee flavor, which is why so many people who have only ever been exposed to Starbucks (or worse) think that coffee by itself tastes bad, when it really doesn't. Several of us at my company nearly staged an uprising when an HR person who didn't know any better brought back a bag of "Starbucks Dark French Roast" for our several thousand dollar coffee machine to use, thinking she was doing us a favor.
(quick aside: to quote Wikipedia's definition for a French Roast - "Roast character is dominant at this level. Little, if any, of the inherent flavors of the coffee remain." I.e. It's been burnt to the point where you can't taste the coffee itself, and that's even before you take into account that a Starbucks "blonde" is actually a medium, their "medium" is a dark, and their "dark" is simply burnt beyond hope.)
As for why they over-roast, there are two main reasons. One is that more heavily roasted beans maintain a flavor for longer, giving them a longer shelf life. The other is that over-roasting produces a stronger (though worse) flavor that can stand out when you load your drink up with cream, caramel, sugar, whipped cream, ice, and whatever else. If they had instead used properly roasted beans, they'd have needed to increase the concentration of actual coffee in the drink (i.e. increase their costs), since the flavor of decent coffee is more subdued and would have a harder time standing out above that mess of excess. Instead, they cheated by increasing the strength of the flavor via over-roasting so that they could use as little coffee as possible, while compromising on the flavor of the most important ingredient itself.
And even if you go for their "blonde" roasts, they're still just average compared to decent ones you can pick up elsewhere. If you want some decent coffee without a lot of fuss, get it from a decent roaster as soon as possible after roasting (e.g. Tonx), and brew it properly (e.g. use a burr grinder and an Aeropress, for instance).
It's what I do when I can't get to sleep. ;)
I always called them Charbucks - I guess we have the same opinion about their coffee roasting skills.
Top Ten Green Coffee Producers - 2009 (millions of metric tons)
Brazil 2.44
Vietnam 1.18
Colombia 0.89
Indonesia 0.70
India 0.29
Ethiopia 0.27
Peru 0.26
Mexico 0.25
Guatemala 0.25
Honduras 0.21
-----------------
World Total 7.80
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by global warming.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...