Tag Archives: coffee leaf rust

ROYA IS EVOLVING. SO WHAT NOW?

2017-05-22 Comments Off on ROYA IS EVOLVING. SO WHAT NOW?

World Coffee Research has spoken.  Lempira, a high-yielding, popular variety planted throughout Honduras is no longer what thousands of farmers hoped that it would be: resistant to coffee leaf rust.  While there is not yet any conclusive scientific evidence that la roya has evolved into a new race or strain, all indications are pointing to […]

COFFEE LEAF RUST REARS ITS UGLY HEAD AGAIN

2017-05-08 Comments Off on COFFEE LEAF RUST REARS ITS UGLY HEAD AGAIN

Right in the build up to the SCA, there popped up a bit of news out of Honduras that caught my attention.  Like the villain in the in a cheesy horror movie, coffee leaf rust, better known as la roya, just won’t go away.   Initial reports in late March said that there was an outbreak […]

Incentivizing farmer-led renovation in Guatemala

2016-05-23 Comments Off on Incentivizing farmer-led renovation in Guatemala

A few months ago, in the offices of Anacafé in Guatemala City, the II Cumbre de la Roya was held, 2 years after the initial meeting.  The objective of the meeting was to take stock of what has happened since the first meeting and to see how the Central American coffee sector was recovering from […]

Knocking on Coffee’s Door: Cocoa’s Case as a Coffee Farm Alternative

2016-04-22 Comments Off on Knocking on Coffee’s Door: Cocoa’s Case as a Coffee Farm Alternative

In previous Coffeelands posts we have written about the importance of diversifying smallholder coffee farms as a hedge against falling coffee prices, low coffee productivity resulting from disease (such as coffee leaf rust) and other factors. Diversification into other crops such as nuts, plantains and fruit, among others, also helps to ensure that a farmer […]

427. A conversation with Ric Rhinehart on the future of coffee in Mesoamerica

2014-10-16 Comments Off on 427. A conversation with Ric Rhinehart on the future of coffee in Mesoamerica

Last week I participated in Let’s Talk Coffee, importer Sustainable Harvest’s annual value chain event, for the fifth time.  The content of the event was broader the caliber of the speakers higher than at any other LTC event I remember.  But the best presentation of the event—the one that still has me thinking the better […]

419. Coffee leaf rust update: Get the humanitarian aid ready

2014-08-25 Comments Off on 419. Coffee leaf rust update: Get the humanitarian aid ready

Back in May, FEWS NET predicted that coffee leaf rust would create a food security Crisis in coffee-growing regions in eastern and western Guatemala between July and September.  It did. Two weeks ago, FEWS NET issued this update on coffee leaf rust and food security in Central America that delivered more bad news: poor rainfall has […]

409. The coming crisis in the coffeelands

2014-06-05 Comments Off on 409. The coming crisis in the coffeelands

The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) released another update on the food security situation in Central America last week.  I have not been working directly on our response to coffee leaf rust in Central America, and I have not been publishing much here lately.  But I felt compelled by a “lost-in-translation” moment in […]