Climate change impacts global coffee production

Mumbai: People love coffee, but it’s getting harder to produce and more expensive to buy – the sole reason being climate change. 

Extreme weather in global coffee-growing regions has likely contributed to coffee price spikes in recent years.

A new analysis from Climate Central, that analyzes and reports on climate science, shows that climate change added more coffee-harming heat to the world’s coffee-growing regions during 2021-2025, potentially affecting the quality and quantity of recent harvests.

Coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the world, with an estimated 2.2 billion cups consumed every day. In the United States alone, at least two-thirds of adults drink coffee daily.

But the world’s coffee supply is under growing pressure, and climate change is playing a significant role.

The 25 coffee-growing countries analyzed account for about 97 per cent of global coffee production — and all of them experienced more coffee-harming heat during the past five years because of climate change.

The top five coffee-growing countries, responsible for 75 per cent of the world’s supply, experienced on average 57 extra days of coffee-harming heat annually because of climate change.

Akshay Dashrath, Co-Founder and Grower at the South India Coffee Company, said: “At Mooleh Manay, our farm, climate change isn’t something we’re predicting, it’s something we’re measuring every day. Our on-ground sensors show longer stretches of high daytime temperatures, warmer nights, and faster soil moisture loss than what coffee here has historically depended on.”

“These shifts are putting pressure on the system. We’re seeing soils dry out more quickly, plants working harder to cope with heat stress, and biological activity in the soil becoming less stable. Even where rainfall totals look ‘normal’ on paper, the timing and intensity are changing, which affects how much water the soil actually holds and how effectively nutrients are used by the coffee plant,” he added. 

“Coffee is a crop that thrives on balance. Shade, moisture, and cool recovery periods. As that balance narrows, farms like ours and our partner farms have to adapt fast through better shade management, soil health, and water resilience,” added Dashrath.

Sohan Shetty, who manages a number of biodiversity-rich shaded organic coffee farms for Satyanarayana Plantations in the Western Ghats, said: “We are seeing two significant changes: increased temperatures and erratic rainfall. We see a reduction in soil moisture, even in shade grown coffee. This creates stress for coffee plants, which in turn triggers blossoms with erratic rains. So it's quite common to see planters halting harvesting because part of their plants have blossomed. “We have had our coffee fruit drying up in the plants faster because of increased temperatures.”

The analysis: 

1. The top five coffee-producing countries — Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Ethiopia, and Indonesia — each experienced 57 extra days of harmful heat per year due to climate change, on average. Together, they supply 75 per cent of the world’s coffee.

2. Brazil, the world’s top coffee-growing nation, faced an average of 70 extra coffee-harming hot days annually because of climate change.

3. All 25 coffee-growing countries analyzed — representing 97per cent of global production — experienced more coffee-harming heat because of climate change. 

4. On average, each country experienced 47 additional days per year with temperatures harmful to coffee plants that would not have occurred without fossil fuel pollution.