Tag Archives: Central America

358. Diversify, diversify, diversify.

2013-05-14 Comments Off on 358. Diversify, diversify, diversify.

The coffee leaf rust crisis in Central America has gotten people talking about diversification.  At the First International Coffee Rust Summit in Guatemala last month, participants advocated passionately (and persuasively) for diversification of coffee genetics and coffee farms.  There is a third type of diversification that wasn’t discussed in depth but remains critical to the […]

357. Help wanted in Central America: Lead the response to coffee rust

2013-05-07 Comments Off on 357. Help wanted in Central America: Lead the response to coffee rust

At the conclusions of the First International Coffee Rust Summit in Guatemala last month, the noted coffee agronomist Peter Baker confided to me that he did not think the event answered the most important question: “The Beyoncé Question.” I was confused. He elaborated: “It’s a line from one of her songs: ‘Who run this mother?’” […]

356. Coffee rust: An inconvenient truth

2013-05-06 Comments Off on 356. Coffee rust: An inconvenient truth

The application of climate science to coffee has generated an inconvenient truth: the map of the coffeelands in Mesoamerica will be redrawn over the next 40 years, and by 2050 the specialty coffee map will likely be much smaller than it is today.  Against the backdrop of the current coffee rust epidemic in Central America, […]

355. What they didn’t say at the Coffee Rust Summit

2013-04-29 Comments Off on 355. What they didn’t say at the Coffee Rust Summit

The program at the First International Coffee Rust Summit that recently concluded in Guatemala was filled with experts who addressed many different aspects of the current coffee rust emergency: the epidemiology of coffee rust, origins of this year’s outbreak, methods for controlling it, the social and economic implications for farmers and their communities, strategies for […]

350. Reflections on the c-word

2013-04-17 Comments Off on 350. Reflections on the c-word

CRS began working in coffee just over 10 years ago in response to a crisis.  Today the coffee sector finds itself coping with another crisis.  As I prepare for four days of meetings here in Guatemala to plan a coordinated response to the coffee rust epidemic in Central America, I try to remember that challenges […]

349. Coffee rust: Central America’s official plan of attack

2013-04-16 Comments Off on 349. Coffee rust: Central America’s official plan of attack

This afternoon I will travel to Guatemala City to participate in four days of discussions around coffee rust convened by World Coffee Research and PROMECAFE, a network of national coffee programs in Central America and the Caribbean.  The objective of the meeting is to develop a more detailed strategy for responding to the coffee rust […]

348. Coffee rust: All along the watchtower.

2013-04-11 Comments Off on 348. Coffee rust: All along the watchtower.

There seem to be very few conversations in coffee these days that are not influenced in some way by the coffee rust crisis in Central America. And there are other long-standing conversations that seem to be assuming renewed importance in the current context.  One of these is the return on the investments that farmers make […]

345. Coffee rust: The long haul

2013-04-08 Comments Off on 345. Coffee rust: The long haul

The estimates of productive and economic losses to coffee leaf rust in Central America are nothing short of staggering.  Half of all coffee  affected.  Hundreds of millions of pounds of production losses projected.  Hundreds of thousands of jobs lost.  Economic losses running into the billions of dollars. Against this backdrop, we should not be surprised […]

343. Coffee rust: Deja vu all over again?

2013-03-26 Comments Off on 343. Coffee rust: Deja vu all over again?

Last week, agricultural authorities and coffee organizations from Central America holed up in Panama for two days with research institutes, regional banks and UN agencies to try to hammer out a plan for responding to the coffee leaf rust outbreak.  As I trolled the web for news of the meeting’s results, I came across this […]