Bloomberg reports that global warming, the fear of which has already sent the alternative energy marketing to overdrive, may soon be affecting the coffee houses near you. Nestor Osorio, the head of the International Coffee Organization, is predicting that Osorio says that, due to drier weather patterns, the flowering of the coffee plants for the 2008 crop will be affected. The lack of rain will stunt the bloom and increase the amount of time it takes the plants to develop the “cherries” from which the coffee beans are harvested. “The rain has not been the proper one”, Osorio said.
He is certain the 2008 crop will be less than 40 million bags, and could be as low as 32 million, a decrease of 20%.
Coffee is traded in 60-kilogram–about 132-pound-bags–and, since the market’s most recent bottom in 2001, its prices have increased significantly. The usual harvest produces 105 to 120 million bags a year, and
2006 has seen the price of Arabica coffee beans, which are grown for their flavor, increase sixteen percent, while robusta coffee beans, with a much higher caffeine content, widely used to control the cost of supermarket coffee blends, have experienced a twenty percent price hike.
And because Brazilian coffee accounts for so much of the global output, unless its coffee harvest shortfalls can be compensated for elsewhere, they will “account for a large portion of the change in the world total supplies,” according to a June 2007 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
As Economics 101 teaches us, any imbalance between supply and demand will eventually make its way to the wallets of those demanding what cannot be easily supplied.
So, if you have a favorite blend of coffee, do a little research and find out how much of it came from
Then, act accordingly.
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