Climate and Pest-Driven Geographic Shifts in Global Coffee Production: Implications for Forest Cover, Biodiversity and Carbon Storage

Abstract

Coffee is highly sensitive to temperature and rainfall, making its cultivation vulnerable to geographic shifts in response to a changing climate. This could lead to the establishment of coffee plantations in new areas and potential conflicts with other land covers including natural forest, with consequent implications for biodiversity and ecosystem services. We project areas suitable for future coffee cultivation based on several climate scenarios and expected responses of the coffee berry borer, a principle pest of coffee crops. We show that the global climatically-suitable area will suffer marked shifts from some current major centres of cultivation. Most areas will be suited to Robusta coffee, demand for which could be met without incurring forest encroachment. The cultivation of Arabica, which represents 70% of consumed coffee, can also be accommodated in the future, but only by incurring some natural forest loss. This has corresponding implications for carbon storage, and is likely to affect areas currently designated as priority areas for biodiversity. Where Arabica coffee does encroach on natural forests, we project average local losses of 35% of threatened vertebrate species. The interaction of climate and coffee berry borer greatly influences projected outcomes.

Fig 1. Projected suitability for a) Arabica and b) Robusta coffee cultivation in 2050 under one of the possible scenarios based on greenhouse gas emissions (RCP4.5) compared with the present area suitability and showing loss, gain and no change in suitability for each grid cell.

Fig 2. Global distribution of optimal areas for a)-c) Arabica and d) Robusta coffee plantation in 2050 predicted by the model HADGEM2-AO and current forested surfaces, showing areas where coffee suitability might conflict with forest presence.

Fig 3. a) Global distribution of optimal areas for coffee cultivation in 2050 predicted by the model HADGEM2-AO separating between those suitable for Arabica and Robusta cultivation after accounting for areas currently covered by forest and other crops and b) future distribution of their main pest the coffee berry borer under the RCP4.5 scenario.

Fig 4. Subset of areas that will be suitable for Arabica cultivation in the future, that are currently under forest cover and within the vicinity of areas covered by coffee plantations at present showing a) the number of conservation priority templates that coincide with them, b) the number of threatened vertebrate species they host, and c) the amount of carbon stored per ha in the forests.