Just kidding. We aren’t running out of coffee. But Colombia now says worldwide demand will exceed production next year.
Will this mean more habitat destruction as farmers rush to clear land to help meet the demands of coffee drinkers?
Colombia is the world’s third largest producer of coffee and according to Bloomberg News, a growers group in the country now says that there will be less coffee produced than is desired next year. Oddly, while there will be a probable international surplus of 6-7 million bags this year, the extra supply will soon be made irrelevant by a 10 million bag deficit next year. We aren’t talking about the bags of coffee you buy in stores: we are talking about 132 lb. bags.
If you drink coffee, then you soon might be drinking less than usual.
One reason for next year’s deficit relates to how the world’s leading producer of coffee, Brazil, is currently in the more productive year of a two year cycle they use to commercially grow coffee plants. But the larger explanation for why coffee supplies will be short next year is clear: growers can no longer meet worldwide demand for coffee. Colombia’s response will be to increase production, and probably other countries will do likewise.
This new trend has several implications:
- Coffee will probably become more expensive, directly lowering demand.
- Farmers in coffee-producing countries will increase production, resulting in a wider extent of deforestation and loss of animal and plant life, as well as biodiversity. The deforestation will occur because coffee farmers who are looking for short-term profits will favor shade-growing techniques even less than before, instead opting for use of full sun to grow coffee plants. Global warming’s effects will continue their increase as tropical rainforests are destroyed and consequently trap less carbon.
- Conservationists will increase their efforts to educate coffee drinkers about how they can help. So this is me telling you to please buy shade-grown coffee when you can. Help protect our earth from more destruction.
- The term “peak coffee” will become an instant sensation. While not truly indicative of the phenomenon occurring in the coffee industry, it will nonetheless become a topic of household discussion and insightful internet blog chatter. Alternative country singers will begin writing songs about the days before peak coffee, and how things have now changed. The irony is that these songs will be played acoustically in coffee houses, the very places that helped bring about the rise and fall of peak coffee.
For more information about how coffee is grown, click here to read Wikipedia’s entry on the plant and popular beverage.
Photo Credit: ape_abroad on Flickr under a Creative Commons license
Great post Levi! I can live without oil, but I can’t live without coffee.
Well, maybe this will prod me to finally begin the great experiment in switching to “alternative workplace energy” — green tea and yerba mate. Not real enthusiastic about making this change, but friends say that once the change takes their energy level has improved…
I don’t know if I want to deal with my co-workers caffeine withdrawals. For some people, even green tea and yerba mate isn’t enough. Next think you know, we’ll have a shortage in that too.
Oh… what a relief. By the way, I’m not a coffee addict … hehe
Good article, I think I might invest in coffee futures.
screw the rain forest!
i wants my coffee
green tea is for old ladies and yerba?
what the hell is that?
sounds nasty
I’m glad I’m not really addicted. I can quit anytime I want. Really….
Thanks for the great tips!
And finally, in this the “Fourth Turning” the stimulant that drives it all, reduced, withdrawn, as pot is legalized and taxed, starting in California, and the shift-work will stop, and the Asians will take the last evil smokestacks away, cigarettes will be no more, huge greasy fast meals abolished by the very government that taxes them,cars no longer necessary financial burden to workmen, for getting to work, and people will come out of the trance set by the highly commissioned advertising propagandists, and America will return to a former glory! The car will die, the rails flourish, the ‘burbs abandoned like Soviet tanks, and workers will be dormed for their short annual stay, then set free to pursue a constitutionally guaranteed happiness! Great material wealth impossible to attain, each of us contributing according to means and receiving only fair measure in return, the days of corporatism die, and capitalism, thriving on the Beijing , Hang Seng, and Shanghai markets is absorbed buy the “Yuan” and the bigger players their, the Asian people and the new Empire!
Well, since I personally cannot stand common Columbian coffees, I tried several other varieties. Arabica seems to be the one variety I head to. Ethiopa and Yemen is the home of Arabica, and it is shade grown. I fully expect my Arabica choices will also suffer price increases when Columbian rises.
Cool, I hope to see more from you guys and continue that great work that really gets me motivated.Im such an Coffee lover.