Brazil coffee at risk from global warming - study
Source: Reuters
By Peter Blackburn RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Brazil, one of the world's largest agricultural producers, risks a sharp cut in coffee and other major crops over the next 50 to 100 years due to global warming, researchers said on Monday. A 3-degree Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) rise in temperature would result in a 60 percent reduction in the arabica coffee area in Brazil, the world's biggest producer of the beverage. Brazil, the world's No. 2 soybean producer, would also plant some 40 percent less soybeans and the corn area would decline by 10 to 15 percent. "Coffee will migrate south to cooler areas and we would have coffee grown in Argentina," Hilton Silveira Pinto, associate director of the Center for Meteorological Studies and Applied Climatology, told Reuters. South Brazil is currently too cold to grow coffee. The Center, part of the University of Campinas in Sao Paulo state, conducted a joint multiyear study with the government's agricultural research agency Embrapa Informatica Agropecuaria. The study looked at the impact of a temperature rise of up to 5 degrees Celsius on five major crops - coffee, soybeans, corn, rice and beans. The release of the Brazilian study follows a United Nations report on Friday concluding that rising temperatures on Earth in the past 50 years were 90 percent likely to have been the result of human activity. In Brazil, most of the CO2 emissions are caused by the burning of the Amazon rainforest to make way for farmers. Coffee farming in Minas Gerais state, which accounts for about half Brazil's crop, would disappear, the study said, adding that a similar fate awaits Sao Paulo state, Brazil's No. 3 coffee producer. "Production would fall in quantity and quality," Pinto said, adding that it rains in southern Brazil between April and September when coffee is harvested. A southerly migration of coffee farmers would reverse a trend following a devastating frost in Parana in 1975. Parana, Brazil's most southerly coffee state, used to be the country's biggest producer but now has 5 percent of the crop. He said that Brazil could grow more robusta coffee, which tolerates higher temperatures. Robustas, used in instant coffee, account for about 20 percent of Brazil's coffee. Embrapa researcher Fabio Marin said that although temperatures in southern Brazil would be favourable, lack of water would limit expansion of output. "Biotechnology and development of drought resistant varieties offers a solution," Marin said. Brazil must speed up research into new coffee and other crop varieties that tolerate hotter and drier weather, the two researchers urged. On Friday, Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva told Reuters that prolonged drought would slow economic growth in countries, like Brazil, dependent on hydroelectric power. Brazil's role as a major global supplier of sugar cane-based fuel ethanol would also be threatened.
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