Coffee Drinkers Beware: Colombia Says “Peak Coffee” is Near

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.

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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

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