Hot Coffee, Too Hot
How Climate Change is Affecting Coffee Farmers
My friend Hector leads the way as we hike up the hill to see his coffee plant nursery. After being in the hot tropical sun earlier, his shaded coffee farm feels cool to me. Ferns and moss grow on the trees. There is a small clear stream gurgling next to the path. We come to an opening where the sun shines down, causing me to shield my eyes. Hector shows me the small landslide, which happened when heavy rains came from his neighbor’s property and pushed the stream over its banks and undermined a few of his shade trees and carried off many coffee plants. We pass the landslide area and continue walking to the nursery. There are rows of deep green coffee plants, each growing in a tubular black plastic bag. Hector shows me a leaf of one of the plants. The underside has a splotch of orange, the dreaded coffee rust, the roya. Hector is despondent because this variety was supposed to be resistant. It is not.
I’m scared for Hector and my other coffee farmer friends who live in Honduras. Climate change is making it harder to grow coffee, and now extreme weather even threatens the lives of them and their families. The dystopian future is now.
