Guatemala declares national emergency to deal with spread of fungus devestating coffee crops
Follow the link below to read the article by Sonia Perez
Article Provided by Stacey Carpenito (Starbucks Brand Champion/Coffee Master)
"Coffee Rust," is a fungus, scientifically know by as Hemileia Vastatrix, which forms clusters of yellowish-orange leshions on the coffee leaves causing the tree to no longer bare fruit (coffee cherries.) This disease is devistating to coffee plantations and causes a majority of the farms land to cease productions.
The disease was first reported in Kenya in 1861, then spread to Sri Lanka, and by the early 1900's widely throughout Africa and Asia. It started to affect most of the Asian/Pacific growing region and now is heavily spread across Latin America. This is ground breaking due to the amount of Latin American coffee Starbucks purchases, especially from Guatemala. In the comming months, if these farms aren't treated properly with pesticides, we could see a spike in coffee prices from the Latin American countries.
-Jordan Alejandro
Thank you Jordan for posting this info! Hopefully things will get better.
ReplyDeleteScary Stuff! Nothing is immune to the elements of mother nature
ReplyDeleteI remember reading about this when I went through Coffee Master and thinking I hope this never happens again.... Sure enough it has. I hope this does not keep spreading. How scary for the farmers!
ReplyDeleteThis is bad news and has the potential to put many of Latin American farmers out of jobs. Not to mention lose some of our most loved blends of coffee
ReplyDeleteHas anyone followed up on this? Are we making progress from our losses? Manny has mentioned the recent purchase of a research farm in Costa Rica to work towards the coffee rust issue. I wonder if any other problems in regards to this appedemic have been diagnosed and cured in the recent months.
ReplyDelete-Jordan