Relentless rain impacts Central American coffee supplies

Paul Smithson

18/10/2011 14:58:18

Severe rainstorms are causing problems for coffee growers in Central America, who produce about one fifth of the worlds Arabica coffee beans.

According to Reuters, farmers in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica have all been affected, with the rain causing ripe cherries to fall off the trees.

This has created road damage, leading to transportation issues that could have consequences for suppliers.

The region features a number of speciality beans popular with espresso machine users in the UK, but growers have yet to produce meaningful statistics regarding how much the rainstorms will impact end users. However a serious reduction in the harvest could result in certain types of coffee being more scarce in the year that follows.

Hernando Urena, manager of Costa Rica’s national coffee co-operative federation, told reporters it has been days since the coffee fields have seen the sun - which is leading to outbreaks of fungus.

“We’ve already had nine days of uninterrupted rain and the coffee is ripe. Too much rain makes the berries swell up full of water and burst, and then they fall off,” he added.

While the current weather is currently causing problems in Central America, Kristian Beadle wrote in Miller-McCune that the shade-coffee farming methods favoured by many growers could become an important part of the overall, long-term battle against climate change.

She explained that recent research showed that coffee crops have huge potential for carbon storage, which may prove to be a pivotal benefit of a farming approach that has come under greater scrutiny in the face of demand for higher yields.