Coffee vs. Climate Change

Over the past three years, the price of coffee on the world market has more than doubled. “We may be the last generation to drink coffee,” fears Brazilian coffee farmer Felipe Croce. Does our morning ritual have a future? Researchers and farmers around the world are searching for solutions in archives, laboratories, on plantations and in forests.

Coffee farmer Felipe Croce is converting his farm into a climate-resilient agroforestry system so that his plants can withstand the coming El Niño. At the Royal Botanic Gardens in London, British researcher Dr Aaron Davis is scouring the archives for forgotten, more robust coffee varieties. And in Uganda, his colleague Dr Catherine Kiwuka has made a surprising discovery that offers hope. The start-up company Food Brewer is taking an even more radical approach: it is growing coffee cell cultures in steel tanks.

In collaboration with the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, it is attempting to replicate the flavour of the coffee bean.