If your coffee is going bad, blame it on climate change

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Robusta coffee is more heat tolerant than Arabica It can be grown at lower elevations than rival variety Top roasters increase use of Brazilian robusta Yields in Brazil now match top robusta grower in Vietnam

LONDON / NEW YORK / SAO PAULO, Aug.16 (Reuters) – Coffee leader Brazil is turning to stronger, more bitter robusta beans, which are more heat resistant than the delicate arabica, a sign of the impact of climate change on global markets – and shaping our favorite flavors.

Brazil is the world’s largest producer of arabica, but its production has remained largely stable over the past five years. Meanwhile, its production of cheaper robusta – usually grown at low altitudes and considered inferior – has surged and is attracting more and more international buyers, new data shows.

The expansion challenges Vietnam’s long-standing Robusta dominance, while crushing smaller players, increasingly leaving production concentrated in fewer regions and more vulnerable to price spikes in extreme weather conditions.

It also promises to gradually change the flavor of the world’s coffee over the coming years, as more of the harder, more caffeine-laden Robusta variety widely used to make instant coffee will find its way into them. more expensive ground mixes currently dominated by arabica.

Whatever your tastes, Enrique Alves, a scientist specializing in growing coffee beans at the Brazilian State Agrotechnology Research Center Embrapa, said that perhaps it is thanks to robusta that “our daily coffee will never fail. As the globe heats up.

“It is much more robust and productive than the arabica,” he added. “For equivalent levels of technology, it produces almost twice as much.

The two dominant varieties are contrasted.

Arabica, which makes up about 60% of the world’s coffee, is generally sweeter with more variation in flavor, and can be worth more than twice as much as Robusta coffee.

Robusta may be less refined, but it offers much higher yields and greater resistance to rising temperatures and is becoming an increasingly attractive option for farmers in Brazil, which globally produces 40% of the world’s coffee. .

“The world will be using a lot of Brazilian robusta in the near future, I’m sure,” said Carlos Santana, Brazil-based chief coffee trader for Eisa Interagricola, a unit of ECOM, one of the largest traders. in agricultural raw materials to the world. .

Roasters around the world are increasingly experimenting with adding more Brazilian robusta, known as conillon, to their ground and instant coffee blends, he added.

“He’s gaining ground in the global mix.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER ROASTER

Brazil has increased its robusta production by 20% to 20.2 million 60kg bags over the past three seasons, according to data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Meanwhile, robusta production in Vietnam fell 5% to 28 million bags.

The Southeast Asian nation’s position as the world’s largest exporter of robusta is secured for the time being; it exported 23.6 million bags last season compared to 4.9 million in Brazil, the second largest producer of robusta.

However, things are changing internationally for Brazil. Most of its robusta crop has traditionally been swallowed up by high domestic consumption of over 13 million bags per year, but the country has now accumulated a large export surplus.

Until this year, many Brazilian beans ended up in warehouses certified by the ICE Futures Europe exchange, the market of last resort for excess coffee with no international buyers.

Data from Cecafe, the Brazilian Coffee Export Association, shows that in 2018, 2019, 2020, between 20 and 50% of Brazil’s conillon exports went to the Netherlands, Belgium and Great Britain. , where almost all of the stock exchange’s robusta coffee stocks are found.

By contrast, until May, only 2% went there, with Mexico and South Africa among the countries that import significantly more Brazilian robusta, destined for roasters who turn green beans into retail coffee blends. .

“Every day another roaster says I’m going to go for conillons,” said a senior coffee trader at a Swiss-based global trading house.

THE ARABICA EXPECTED BY TIME FREAK

Vietnam’s Robusta dominance is based on much higher average yields than its competitors, at around 2.5 tonnes per hectare. India, for example, has an average Robusta yield of around 1.1 tonnes.

But Brazil having worked for twenty years to improve the quality, taste and resistance of its conillon while increasing productivity levels by up to 300%, the country is in aggressive competition.

It now has an average yield similar to that of Vietnam, and farmers believe there is potential for further growth.

Luiz Carlos Bastianello, a conillon farmer from Espirito Santo state, told Reuters that his state’s modern and mechanized farms have achieved record yields of up to 12 tonnes per hectare.

Espirito Santo also organizes annual contests to determine the best quality conillon.

“We have been working on quality for 18 years,” said Bastianello, who is also the head of one of Espirito Santo’s largest cooperatives, Cooabriel.

There are several different varieties of conillion seedlings in Brazil, he added, all of which have been specially bred to increase their genetic resilience and efficiency and are particularly well suited to withstand hot, dry weather.

In terms of Arabica production, Brazilian farmers are increasingly hampered by extreme weather conditions such as the recent abnormal frost that devastated around 11% of the country’s Arabica growing areas.

Over the past four years, arabica production in Brazil, which has a two-year crop cycle, has increased by only 6% in its two “off-season” crops, while remaining stable in its two “seasons” , according to USDA data.

DURIAN AND MACADAMIA FROM VIETNAM

Vicofa, the Vietnamese association of coffee and cocoa farmers, told Reuters that the country’s robusta production could continue to decline in the coming seasons, as farmers step up intercropping with fruits, nuts and vegetables.

“There is no more land and durian and macadamia are more profitable,” said Tran Dinh Trong, chief farmer of the Cong Bang coffee cooperative in Vietnam’s Dak Lak province.

Nguyen Quang Binh, an independent industry analyst based in Vietnam, said roasters including Nestlé (NESN.S) have replaced some Vietnamese robusta with conillon this season.

Nestlé, one of the world’s largest coffee buyers, is spending $ 700 million in Mexico, an instant coffee export hub, to modernize and expand its coffee factories.

Data from Cecafe shows that Mexico has nearly quadrupled its imports of conillons from Brazil in the past three years. Nestlé declined to say whether it uses Brazilian culture in its Mexican factories.

Report by Maytaal Angel in London, Marcelo Teixeira in New York and Roberto Samora in Sao Paulo. Additional reporting by James Pearson in Hanoi and Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogata; Editing by Nigel Hunt, Veronica Brown and Pravin Char

Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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