{"id":534389,"date":"2024-11-07T14:24:30","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T17:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=534389"},"modified":"2024-11-07T14:28:23","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T17:28:23","slug":"climate-change-expected-to-affect-brazilian-coffee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/climate-change-expected-to-affect-brazilian-coffee\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change expected to affect Brazilian coffee"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Rafael Rocha\u2009\/\u2009EMBRAPA<\/span>Amazon robusta coffee, a variety developed by EMBRAPA and adapted to the northern Brazilian climateRafael Rocha\u2009\/\u2009EMBRAPA<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

In 10 or 20 years\u2019 time, if new types of coffee plantations do not take the place of current ones, coffee produced in Brazil may be more bitter, acidic, and astringent. That\u2019s the conclusion reached from tests conducted at the Environmental Research Institute (IPA) of S\u00e3o Paulo, in chambers simulating the climate over the coming decades, with more carbon gas (CO\u2082) in the atmosphere and less water in the soil than found today. \u201cWith more CO\u2082, coffee plants may photosynthesize more and grow higher, but possibly they will produce fewer fruits,\u201d considers Douglas Domingues, of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP), who participated in the experiments described in the scientific journal Plants<\/em> in July 2022.<\/p>\n

The idea that other regions will be used for planting is also plausible; the biggest current producers are the states of Minas Gerais, with almost half of Brazilian output, followed by Esp\u00edrito Santo, S\u00e3o Paulo, Bahia, Rond\u00f4nia, and Paran\u00e1. Canephora can withstand higher temperatures, whereas arabica is more sensitive.<\/p>\n

See more:<\/strong>
\n– Innovations elevate Brazilian coffee<\/a>
\n– Coffee consumption caution required<\/a><\/div>\n

According to simulations run by researchers from the Federal University of Itajub\u00e1 (UNIFEI) in Minas Gerais, detailed in Science of the Total Environment <\/em>in January, between 35% and 75% of lands currently occupied by coffee plantations could become unsuitable due to climate change by the end of the century, driving the quest for higher, colder areas.<\/p>\n

Studies conducted by the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) indicate that coffee-growing areas may shrink and become restricted to the highest environs in the southeast, while also being implemented in the Brazilian South, including the state of Rio Grande do Sul, where coffee is only consumed and not grown at present (see <\/em>Pesquisa FAPESP issue n\u00ba 198<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to alert farmers about how to protect their crops from the effects of climate change,\u201d says agricultural engineer Celso Vegro, of the Institute of Agricultural Economics in S\u00e3o Paulo. One of the methods he has looked at is rural insurance, which covers losses arising primarily from climatic phenomena. Vegro found that fewer than 15,000 of the almost 200,000 rural producers in S\u00e3o Paulo State have adopted this mechanism to guard against failed harvests.<\/p>\n

Almost three centuries of history in Brazil
\n<\/strong>After its discovery in Africa \u2014 arabica in Ethiopia, conilon in Congo, and robusta in Guinea \u2014 coffee made its mark in Europe and its South American territories. In 1727, at the behest of the Portuguese government, officer Francisco de Mello Palheta (1670-1750) smuggled from Guyana, then a French colony, the first seedlings to the city of Bel\u00e9m, part of what was then known as the state of Maranh\u00e3o and Grand-Par\u00e1.<\/p>\n

\u201cApparently there was much interest in the crop [coffee], as in 1734 the Port of Lisboa Customs reported the disembarkation of 3,000 arrobas (today in Brazil 1 arroba = 15 kilograms) of coffee from the General Company of Maranh\u00e3o and Grand-Par\u00e1,\u201d observes Vegro in a January 2023 article in the Revista de Economia Agr\u00edcola <\/em>(Agricultural economics journal).<\/p>\n

In the years that followed, plantations expanded across the Brazilian Northeast and then southward, arriving around 1820 in the Para\u00edba Valley between the states of Rio de Janeiro and S\u00e3o Paulo. Cantagalo and Vassouras, in Rio, and Areias and Bananal, in S\u00e3o Paulo, became prominent producers during this period, until falling into decline at the end of the nineteenth century due to soil exhaustion and scarcity of labor with the end of the slavery system.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\n \n \n \n <\/picture>Alexandre Affonso \/ Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span><\/div>
\n

In the twentieth century, coffee plantations took the place of sugarcane fields in the state of S\u00e3o Paulo, leading to the growth and enrichment of cities such as Campinas, Rio Claro, S\u00e3o Carlos, and Ribeir\u00e3o Preto. Largo do Caf\u00e9 (the Coffee Square), the Martinelli building, and the Luz station in S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s state capital, the coffee exchange in Santos, and the colonial mansions and houses across many cities and farms in the interior reflect the heyday of the coffee economy at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the fruit was the Brazilian economy\u2019s main product.<\/p>\n

If on one hand the coffee plantations brought about the destruction of extensive swathes of forests in the S\u00e3o Paulo state interior, on the other they enabled the accumulation of capital, which led to the growing industrialization of the state from the early twentieth century. From S\u00e3o Paulo, the coffee was dispatched to Minas Gerais, Esp\u00edrito Santo, Paran\u00e1, Bahia, Goi\u00e1s, and Mato Grosso States.<\/p>\n

Since 2013, with varieties known as Amazon robustas, developed by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) from the Campinas Institute of Agriculture (IAC) germplasm bank, producers have found ways to grow coffee while maintaining the forests in the states of Rond\u00f4nia and Amazonas (see <\/em>Pesquisa FAPESP issue n\u00ba 282<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n

Coffee production involves 330,000 producers across almost 2,000 of the 5,568 Brazilian municipalities. As with much of the Brazilian farming system, coffee is predominantly grown on smaller properties, but with output concentrated in large productive units. Most of Brazil\u2019s rural coffee-growing properties are small (81% of all units harvest below a thousand sacks per month), with 95% of output coming from medium- or large-scale properties.<\/p>\n

One peculiarity of the coffee cultivation economy is cooperativism, with a total 97 cooperatives accounting for 55% of national output and 35% of exports, according to the National Coffee Board.<\/p>\n

Scientific articles
\n<\/strong>DIAS, C. G. et al<\/em>. Climate risks and vulnerabilities of the Arabica coffee <\/em>in Brazil under current and future climates considering new CMIP6 models<\/a>. Science of The Total Environment<\/strong>. vol. 907, 167753. jan. 10, 2024.
\nLOBO, A. K. M. et al<\/em>. Physiological and molecular responses of woody plants exposed to future atmospheric CO2 <\/sub>levels under abiotic stresses<\/a>. Plants<\/strong>. vol. 11, no. 14, 1880. july 20, 2022.
\nVEGRO, C. L. R. A an\u00e1lise socioecon\u00f4mica da lavoura cafeeira nos 80 anos do Instituto de Economia Agr\u00edcola (IEA): Um pot-pourri<\/a>. Revista de Economia Agr\u00edcola<\/strong>. 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a result of climate change, coffee farms are likely to migrate again in the coming years in search of more suitable weather conditions","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,159],"tags":[153,200],"coauthors":[5968],"class_list":["post-534389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cover","category-science","tag-agronomy","tag-environment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534389"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":536019,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534389\/revisions\/536019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534389"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=534389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}