FinSoul has learnt of a recent report which indicates that climate change has adversely affected Kenyan coffee production through excessive droughts and unpredictable rainfall which has made crop management and disease control highly difficult.
The 2007/08 crop year saw a severe bout of Coffee Berry Disease cut the overall Kenyan crop output by 23% to 42,000 tonnes as farmers were unable to protect their crops after being caught out by unpredictable rains.
"We have seen climate change in intermittent rainfall patterns, extended drought and very high temperatures,"
"Coffee operates within a very narrow temperature range of 19-25 degrees (Celsius). When you start getting temperatures above that, it affects photosynthesis and in some cases, trees wilt and dry up. We have see trees drying up in some marginal coffee areas."
Kenyan coffee beans, while accounting for less than 1% of the globes total production, are popular for blends and its buyers have specific volume requirements.
"If you are not able to meet that volume in one, two years, they are traders, so naturally they will look for another coffee to replace your coffee. And when they do that, then they cannot come back, even when you get back to production,"
Unpredictable rainfall is also causing the coffee plants to bloom constantly over a number of months instead of all at the same point, forcing growers to hire labour to harvest the beans over a long period, which affects the profits from the crops.
Similar reports have come from Brazil over both the coffee and biofuel crops which are playing an increasing part in an economy moving toward ethanol production as an alternative to fossil fuels.
