FROM THE EDITOR

THE NOVEL ON my bedside table is about a man named Harvey who believes that he can control the weather. He travels around the globe to save different regions from severe atmospheric events.
     I have been fascinated by the weather for as long as I can remember. Maybe it’s because my grandfather was a government meteorologist who taught me the names of weather phenomena just about as soon as I started talking. He got a kick out of me telling strangers about cirrus, stratus and cumulus clouds floating overhead. Today, I’m still drawn in by climate-related stories from around the globe. The force of the tropical storms that hurtle across the sea. Unrelenting rain. Or no rain at all, for months at a time.
     In the coffee world, where weather plays a huge role in determining production levels, I have no doubt that Harvey’s talents would be in high demand.
     In Roast’s November/December 2009 issue, we detailed production statistics for coffee grown around the world and included a section on climate change—a hotly debated topic, both inside and outside the coffee industry. Some readers have said that our climate change report was overly gloomy. Yet no matter what your thoughts about climate change and whether it will impact future coffee production, it’s clear that weather is an unpredictable variable. In the coffee industry, we are at its mercy. (Harvey, where are you when we need you?) As we all know, arabica plants are fussy about weather—not too hot or cold, not too wet or dry. If Mother Nature cooperates, the coffee trees flower and produce an abundance of cherries. But if there’s a drought or a deluge of rain, the plants suffer the consequences.
     At Costa Rica’s Sintercafé conference in November, I sat in on a discussion about the wet La Niña weather conditions that decimated the Colombian crop last year. Carlos Alberto González, a director of the Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia, and Ramón Vargas, a Colombian coffee exporter, outlined the circumstances that led to a shortage of Colombian coffee. During nearly every month of 2008, they reported, coffee regions suffered from heavy rain. The excess moisture stunted flowering. At the same time, producers were replacing aging crops with new coffee plants. Topping it off, fertilizer prices soared. Many producers decided to forego application to reduce their costs.
     Colombia’s production dropped by about 30 percent for the season, and many roasters were unable to secure the coffee they’d ordered. Colombian green coffee, which has historically sold for a price difference of just pennies per pound above the New York “C” market, soared to a price differential of nearly 100 cents per pound over the New York “C” market in May 2009.
     The rain persisted in early 2009. Though the additional monthly rainfall might not seem like much—the country’s largest coffee-producing area, Antioquia, received three-quarters of an inch more rain than normal last January—the continued pattern of high rainfall can affect coffee bean development. The good news is that, by 2014, more than 90 percent of Colombia’s coffee plantations will benefit from the government-supported tree renovation program. The country is on track to increase its coffee production in the coming years. But the perfect storm that happened last year highlights how vulnerable the industry can be to the whims of the weather.
     We can’t count on Harvey to protect coffee-growing regions from unusual weather patterns, so it makes sense to educate ourselves about any changes that might be coming and try to be ready to adapt if we need to.

      Cheers,

      Kelly