{"id":310989,"date":"2024-03-21T12:29:33","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T11:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=310989"},"modified":"2024-03-21T12:29:36","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T11:29:36","slug":"wrong-al-jazeera-coffee-production-is-setting-records-not-declining-amid-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=310989","title":{"rendered":"Wrong, Al Jazeera, Coffee Production Is Setting Records, Not Declining Amid Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By H. Sterling Burnett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An Al Jazeera story claims that climate change is threatening coffee production in Vietnam. This is false. Had Al Jazeera bothered to check readily available data, it would have found that coffee production in Vietnam and globally has repeatedly set new records for yield and production over the past thirty years of climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the story, \u201cCoffee\u2019s in danger: Can Vietnam\u2019s Robusta save it from climate change?<\/a>,\u201d Jenny Gustafsson describes how Vietnamese researchers are trying to avoid a climate changed induced coffee apocalypse by modifying the Robusta coffee bean to a flavor profile closer to the Arabica bean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the coffee industry, Robusta is known as the inferior sibling of Arabica, lacking the latter\u2019s complexity and sweeter, smoother notes. Robusta is almost always mass-produced and cheap,\u201d writes Gustafsson. \u201c\u2018The Robusta market is only looking for the best price. But we can change that,\u2019 Nguyen Van Hoa says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey must. The Arabica coffee bean which is near-universally synonymous with quality coffee, is under serious threat from climate change,\u201d Gustafsson claims. \u201cReforming the image and quality of the much-maligned \u2013 but, as its name suggests, resilient \u2013 Robusta coffee bean is crucial for the future of coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story has a serious flaw. Real-world data show that the claims about a decline in coffee in general, and arabica beans in particular just aren\u2019t true. Not for the world in general, nor for Vietnam in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First let\u2019s examine the data on Arabica bean production. Although coffee, like every other crop, has its yearly ups and downs, Arabica bean coffee production has been on the upswing during the recent period of modest warming. As explored in Climate Realism<\/a>, here, Arabica coffee production set new records for production in the 2018\/2019 growing season. Its second largest production year came in 2020\/2021. Indeed, Arabica bean production increased by 25 percent from 2005 to 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about coffee as a whole. As discussed repeatedly in previous Climate Realism<\/em> stories, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>, for example, the one consistent fact about coffee production is that, like most other crops, its yield and production totals are doing well, regularly setting new records for both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reports that during the most recent 30-year period over which climate change is measured, from 1992 through 2022 (the last year of available data):<\/p>\n\n\n\n