Global Warming Moves
Costa Rica Coffee Land
Higher
By John McPhaul
(Reuters)
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -
Costa Rican coffee
farmers are facing
threats from climate
change but the rising
temperatures are also
expanding high-altitude
regions where the
country's most prized
beans are grown.
Human emissions of
greenhouse gases could
cause the earth's
surface temperature to
rise anywhere between
one and six degrees
Celsius (1.8 and 10.8
degrees Fahrenheit) over
the next 100 years,
according to the United
Nations, forcing growers
of all crops to adapt to
new weather conditions.
In Costa Rica, the
temperature increases
may help transform
mountainous land that
was once too chilly for
delicate coffee trees
into prime
coffee-planting
territory.
The strictly hard-bean
Arabica coffee sought by
specialty roasters is
only found at high
altitudes, so the shift
could mean more
opportunities for a
country already known
for its quality coffee.
"We can now plant at
2,000 metres (6,562
feet). We didn't plant
there before," said
Daniel Ureña, an
agronomist for the
Coopedota coffee
cooperative, which sells
its high-altitude coffee
to buyers such as
Starbucks Corp.
Ureña said the
cooperative's coffee
plants traditionally
have not survived above
1,800 meters (5,906
feet).
But while farmers in
Costa Rica's highlands
maybe able to develop
into new areas, climate
change could bring
blight to the crop with
unseasonable dry spells,
unusual cold snaps and
more difficulties
growing coffee at lower
elevations.
A recent U.N. study in
Uganda found an increase
of just two degrees
Celsius (3.6 degrees
Fahrenheit) would
drastically cut back the
land area suitable for
coffee.
In the coffee-growing
regions that survive,
global warming could
leave stressed coffee
trees susceptible to new
diseases and some coffee
pests thriving in the
warmer weather.
"Increases in the
frequency of dry cycles
that reduce the effect
of cold on plants could
favor the proliferation
of fungus like the leaf
rust coffee fungus,"
said Patricia Ramirez, a
scientist working for
inter-governmental
Central American
Integration System.
The rust infects mainly
leaves, but also attacks
young fruit and buds,
and hit Brazil's coffee
crop in 1970.
Strong winds that
unexpectedly affected
production in Guatemala
and a severe drought in
Brazil -- the world's
leading coffee producer
-- last year are
examples of how global
climate change can
damage crops and reduce
yields, said Jorge
Ramirez, head of the
Costa Rican Coffee
Institute's research
center.
He said growers can take
measures to mitigate the
effects of climate
change by planting more
shade trees in coffee
fields to protect
cherries from
stronger-than-usual
rains or creating
protective windbreaks
around farms with
fast-growing trees.
"We have to educate
farmers to use (these
methods) more," he said.
(Additional reporting
and writing by Mica
Rosenberg; Editing by
Christian Wiessner) |
