The following excerpt is from a May 19, 2010 article published by Reuters. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
SAN LUCAS TOLIMAN, Guatemala, May 19 (Reuters) – Mexico and Central America could lose around a third of land suitable to grow coffee as global warming hurts conditions for the best quality beans, a study of regional farms shows.
Specialty arabica coffee, the pride of countries like Guatemala, grows inside a very narrow band of altitude and temperature making it particularly sensitive to small changes in the climate.
At the current rate temperatures are rising, there could be at least a 30 percent net loss in land suitable to farm coffee in Mexico and Central America by 2050 forcing many farmers to turn to different crops, said Peter Laderach, a lead researcher at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture…
Click here to read the rest of the article, here to read about the Guatemalan economy, or here to read about the environment.
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