The challenges facing coffee production due to climate change are enormous. Producers feel the negative effects immediately, yet they must remain competitive at the same time in order to survive – a difficult situation.
Eric Rahn, coffee researcher and agronomist from CIAT in Colombia, sees two main developments that coffee's future could take: on one hand, increasingly intensive agriculture, and on the other hand, a shift toward agroforestry systems. There isn't much room in between for those who want to continue making their living from coffee production.
The prospects are bleak – "most producers don't plant the right variety," says Eric Rahn. In the context of optimized varieties, expensive fertilizer, and falling coffee prices, developing a strategy that provides security to producers only works if the risk is shared among multiple parties.
In this 45-minute conversation with Philipp Schallberger, Eric Rahn compares the challenges faced by coffee producers in Vietnam, Central America, and South America, and explains in detail why agroforestry systems could be a key to future coffee production.
Interview and editing: Philipp Schallberger
