{"id":9407,"date":"2016-11-03T21:26:29","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T01:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/a-coffee-less-world\/"},"modified":"2016-11-03T21:26:29","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T01:26:29","slug":"a-coffee-less-world","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/a-coffee-less-world\/","title":{"rendered":"A Coffee-less world"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine a morning where you couldn\u2019t drink coffee. What were you feeling \u2013 irritable? On-the-edge? And what did you feel when you finally had some coffee? Relief? More than 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed each day worldwide. [1]<\/a> So, irrespective of whether you feel caffeine addiction is good or bad, it is clear that the world runs on caffeine. Coffee is so freely available that we take it for granted. However, climate change could wipe out coffee production entirely in the future and is a major issue for companies such as Starbucks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The main coffee growing countries are Colombia, Mexico, Ethiopia, Vietnam, and Brazil, collectively referred as the \u201cBean Belt\u201d. [2]<\/a> Increasing temperatures worldwide could reduce the land area suitable for coffee by 50% by 2050 and could wipe out coffee altogether by 2080. [3]<\/a> Warmer temperatures, increased pest and fungus incidence, and pressure on farmers are likely to severely affect the coffee supply chain.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Fig<\/a>
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>Fig 1 – Effect of climate change on the Bean Belt countries<\/strong><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

1) High sensitivity to temperature: <\/u><\/p>\n

Starbucks sells Arabica Coffee, a highly temperature sensitive higher grade of coffee that comprises about 70% of the coffee sold worldwide.[5]<\/sup><\/a> The optimum temperature for it is 18-21\u00b0C and when temperatures exceed this range significantly for a prolonged period of time, the plant health deteriorates rapidly and the bean gets spoiled.[6]<\/sup><\/a> Thus, with increasing temperatures Starbucks is likely to face major bean shortages in the future.<\/p>\n

2) Pests and fungus:<\/u><\/p>\n

Another major issue is pest infestation and fungal infections called coffee rust.[7]<\/a> A troublesome pest is the coffee berry borer, which is not sensitive to pesticides and can spoil coffee beans and cause hundreds of millions of dollars\u2019 worth of damage.[8]<\/a> Even small rises in temperature of 1-2\u00b0C can lead in the widespread proliferation of the coffee berry borer at higher altitudes where coffee is grown, significantly damaging the crop.[9]<\/a> Compounding the pest infestation problem, in 2011, higher temperatures and heavy rainfall at high altitudes also led to significant proliferation of coffee rust (earlier seen only at lower altitudes) in Central America, which wiped out about 50% of coffee producing land area. [10]<\/a><\/p>\n

3)Pressure on the livelihood of coffee farmers:<\/u><\/p>\n

About 25 million people worldwide are engaged in coffee farming[11]<\/a>. Climate change forces farmers to move to higher elevations to be able to grow coffee, but coffee plants take 3-4 years for the beans to be harvest ready[12]<\/a>, a length of time that farmers may not be go without any income. Experiencing difficulties with coffee, farmers may be compelled to completely switch to other crops.[13]<\/a> This would cause more problems for Starbucks\u2019 supply chain.<\/p>\n

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Steps taken by Starbucks to deal with climate change:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n