Your coffee could get worse and more expensive thanks to climate change – SFGate

Photo: Kitjanat Burinram / EyeEm / Getty Images

Kitjanat Burinram / EyeEm / Getty Images

Kitjanat Burinram / EyeEm / Getty Images

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Your coffee could get worse and more expensive thanks to climate change

Coffee drinkers may be in for a bleak future, thanks to climate change.

A new study published in the academic journal Nature Plants by researchers from the University of Nottingham,Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, the Royal Botanical Gardens, and other institutions has found that the cost of coffee is likely about to go up, and the quality is about to nosedive.

In short, the issue is that the Earth is getting too hot. As researchers found, more than half of the land wherein coffee crops grow in Ethiopia will be no longer agriculturally viable due to a longer dry season, unpredictable rainfall, and higher-than-usual temperatures.

"Historical climate data shows that the mean annual temperature of Ethiopia has increased by 1.3 degrees Celsius (roughly 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) between 1960 and 2006," the study reads.

What's worse, as Popular Science reports, this is already a similar issue in other coffee-growing areas of the world, including Colombia, Indonesia, and Brazil.

There's no easy solution to a complex problem, and though the study points out "cost-effective agronomy" options, it appears that coffee drinkers will likely need to shell out more for their beloved beverage in the future.

One such option put forth by the study is to move crops up higher in altitude, to lower temperatures. That's a possibility, but it's an expensive endeavor, and it will almost certainly change the taste of the coffee derived from the terroir of the soil we're used to. Another option, as Pop Sci points out, is to consider genetic engineering.

No matter what, it seems the cost will rise for consumers that is, if nothing changes.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.

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Your coffee could get worse and more expensive thanks to climate change - SFGate