It seems that global warming is causing or about to cause widespread damage throughout the world. Besides endangering certain species of fish in the river, global warming along with global temperature change can also cause Uganda’s coffee plantations to wipe out completely. At least this is what the experts predict.
Rising temperatures and drought are two major aspects of global warming. These two characteristics of global warming are going to cause trouble for the coffee growers of the world , specially in Uganda.
Lately, the rainfall has been very erratic in Uganda. Also, it has been observed that the rainfall hits Uganda at the wrong time.Due to this factor, the crop has less time to mature and grow. If this trend continues, Robusta (a coffee variety) will be completely destroyed.
According to an Ugandan coffee maker, Ronald Buule:
If the coffee beans face a lot of sunshine and less rain, the beans will be smaller and in lower yields.We are worried about the temperature, but we have limited resources
In order to provide the necessary resources, the United Nations conducted a research recently in Uganda. The UN research concluded that even a slight increase of temperature by couple of degrees will wipe out the coffee plantations.
This disturbing trend in the coffee industry is not only applicable to Uganda, but also to India’s coffee growing regions. Coorg coffee region has been seeing a similar trend. With the slightest increase in temperature and drop in rainfall, there will be adverse effects on the Coorg coffee plantations as well.
No one can exactly predict when things will get better. UN panel on climate change is looking at an average increase of 2.5 degrees of global temperature by January. This will probably be due to burning of fossil fuels by us- the humans.
I guess there’s no way around it either. The fact that I am writing about this without being able to do anything about it, is sort of making me sick to the stomach. The message is clear to all the coffee drinkers: global warming must be stopped somehow.
Image Credits: National Geographic [All images from same link]