How can coffee adapt to a changing climate?

May 20, 2014

From the smooth, chocolaty taste of Central American coffee to the fruity, wild flavors that come from East Africa, the coffee we drink is as nuanced as the regions from which it originates. But what if all that changed? A rapidly warming planet, extreme weather patterns, and stronger strains of diseases like coffee leaf rust threaten the variety and quality of coffee worldwide, the livelihood of growers, and the viability of coffee supply chains.

Farmer Brothers is contributing to sustainable solutions as a founding member of World Coffee Research, which works to protect quality coffee supplies. Through our partnership with WCR, we invested $100,000 in 2013 to maintain and expand the genetic diversity of coffee plants and an additional $50,000 to fight coffee leaf rust.

We’re also working in collaboration with one of our customers and with multiple organizations on the ground in Colombia to assess the biggest threats to sustainable farming and putting technical assistance and capacity-building programs in place, so Colombian farms can be more resilient when climate-related issues arise.