Coffee, one of the most consumed products in the world. We drink a lot of coffee, the whole world consumes close to 2.25 billion cups of coffee every day. That is if I did the math correctly 821.25 billion cups of coffee every year. I should drop out of college and invest in the coffee industry. If only everything was as easy as it looks. Turns out that our beloved coffee is slowly dying. According to scientists, half of the world’s coffee could disappear by 2050. Why? You may ask. Thanks to a fungus known as coffee leaf rust.
This fungus isn’t something new for us. The problem is that our friend good ole climate change has made it easier for the fungus to spread killing more coffee plants. Before I keep explaining this, I will give you a quick coffee lesson.
There are two kinds of coffee that we drink in this world, the arabica and the robusta. The arabica provides a high-quality coffee bean, is more expensive and it’s not something that every coffee farmer can grow. On the other hand, the robusta is of lower quality, cheaper and easier to grow. Now guess which one of these two coffee kinds are being affected by the coffee leaf rust. If you guessed arabica congratulations, you win nothing.
This means that coffee farmers affected by the fungus are changing from arabica to robusta. Should we be excited because the price of coffee will be lowered? Absolutely not! This is not the kind of world we live in. Our good ole friend climate change strikes again! Climate change will also make it difficult for coffee farmers to cultivate robusta coffee beans. If you still don’t see the big picture, this product that so many people are addicted to will become more scarce.
So, how will this affect us coffee drinkers? Prepare to start spending more and more money every year on this product sent by the gods. Your morning kick will be more expensive. However, after giving you all these facts, I don’t believe that we will reach a point where we will pay 15 euros for a cup of coffee. We humans can be smart if you don’t think about all the stupid stuff that is happening in the world at the moment. My opinion is that some scientists will give life to a coffee plant that will withstand rough conditions. Because what I’ve learned in the past few years is that we as humans like to fix only part of the problem instead of fixing the root of the problem itself.
