Climate change-linked coffee disease destroys crops, jobs and wages in Central America
Climate change-linked coffee disease destroys crops, jobs and wages in Central America
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation - Tue, 4 Mar 2014 07:16 AM
Author: Anastasia Moloney
BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Coffee farmers in Central America are struggling to tackle the worst epidemic in nearly 40 years of coffee leaf rust, a climate change-linked disease that has slashed coffee production by hundreds of millions of dollars, cut wages and put coffee pickers out of work.
Coffee rust or roya, a fungal disease that attacks the leaves of coffee plants with rust-coloured spore dust, has infected coffee plantations across Central America and the Caribbean since the outbreak started in late 2012.
“The loss in coffee production in Central America for this crop year, 2014, is estimated at $250 million,” Mauricio Galindo, head of operations at the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) told Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone from London.
In Panama, 86 percent of coffee plantations are affected by roya, followed by 74 percent in El Salvador and then Costa Rica and Guatemala, he said.
More:
http://www.trust.org/item/20140304071613-i3ym5/
