Plant Genetics

James Harper

So on one fine day in early July this year, I found myself on the outskirts of Nairobi, capital of Kenya, hopping in a car with Bernard Gichimo.

Bernard Gichimo

My profession is coffee breeding.

I also do coffee agronomy.

James Harper

Bernard is employed by the sponsor of this episode, Triboca, a green bean supplier from the Netherlands, and I'm going to be following him for a couple of days as we drive around the slopes of Mount Kenya as he offers technical agronomic advice to coffee farmers.

And as I was packing my bags back in Berlin, I looked up the weather for Kenya at this time of year and decided to Now we are in July, which is usually our winter.

Bernard Gichimo

It is the coldest month in Kenya, because we are in the tropics, and the temperatures usually get to as low as 12 degrees.

James Harper

But something's not right.

If it was 12 degrees, I'd be wearing that sweater.

But I've actually decided to stuff it back in my bag.

My phone is telling me that the high today is going to be 26 degrees.

Bernard Gichimo

So getting to 26 in July is very unusual.

It's 10 degrees more than it should be.

That is it.

That is it.

James Harper

And as I stare out the window, the land around me is really parched.

Bernard Gichimo

You can see even the grass is dry.

It's only the trees that are surviving.

James Harper

And in one farming area we visit...

Bernard Gichimo

When was the last time it rained heavily?

James Harper

I'm really shocked to hear when it last rained.

Mmm, it was before August last year.

Before August last year?

Yes, August last year.

That's almost a year ago.

Yes.

And Brenner presents to me a pretty grim assessment.

Bernard Gichimo

And if you look at the farms, you realise the crops are failed.

There is a total crop failure.

This is a real menace of climate change, and even the food baskets will be affected greatly.

James Harper

Brenner tells me the rains, which used to come like clockwork, are all scrambled up.

Bernard Gichimo

Usually we get what we call like long rains.

Usually it falls between April and June.

But that rain did not come.

That rain failed.

James Harper

And as we roll past a procession of thirsty looking plants, he lays out how this is going to affect Kenya's coffee farmers, for one.

Bernard Gichimo

Most of that coffee will not be of the best quality, because most of them is light in weight, because it didn't get enough moisture.

James Harper

Because the trees haven't received enough water, the beans aren't as dense as they should be.

And denser beans tend to carry more flavour.

And less flavourful beans means less money for the farmer.

Second problem.

Farmers' costs are higher.

Because ordinarily they would pay pickers and apply fertiliser only at certain times of the year, in sync with the regular rain cycle.

But now it's been thrown completely off, they have to pay pickers for many more months and apply fertiliser more often.

Bernard Gichimo

You have to control all the time.

So the cost of production is going higher.

James Harper

And problem number three.

These unusual temperatures are making pests and diseases stronger.

Bernard Gichimo

We are also experiencing some outbreaks of diseases.

James Harper

And the bottom line is, the more difficult it is to grow coffee, the less profitable it's going to be.

And the less money farmers make out of coffee, the less they're going to grow it.

And the worst case scenario for Kenya's coffee industry is that it goes the way of El Salvador's.

Once upon a time, it was a coffee-growing powerhouse.

And now, barely more than a rounding error.

And climate change is not just affecting Kenyan farmers.

It's affecting coffee farmers almost everywhere.

And if they all decide to stop growing as much coffee, we are in dire straits.

Because the coffee industry, it's worth tens of billions of dollars.

And it all lays on top of the coffee cherries that farmers choose to grow.

So what can we do about it?

In this episode, I'm going to explore it from two different angles.

Finding solutions through genetic research.

And then what farmers can do about it right now on the ground.

So in the first half, we'll look at different genetic solutions.

Because coffee farmers need plants that can withstand the effects of a changing climate.

And I'm going to show you the costs and time frames of getting these new genetic varieties and species into the hands of farmers.

But there are many hurdles in finding solutions.

And I'm actually afraid that as a coffee industry, we're not investing enough money into it at the moment.

And in the second half of the episode, we're going to continue our journey with Bernard.

As we visit various coffee farms who work with Troboca.

And see in micro detail how climate change is affecting their plants.

But also what they can do to keep their farms thriving.

And I gotta say, I began my journey very pessimistic.

But I now have a lot of reason for hope.

But their success, a lot of it, falls on us.

I'm James Harper, and this is the Science of Coffee.

A spin-off series from my documentary podcast Filter Stories.

And a journey into coffee's hidden microscopic secrets.

Okay, so climate change.

It's here.

And we need a solution for coffee farmers.

And often, one of the first solutions that jump to mind is, well, like, let's just develop a coffee variety that can withstand the curveballs that climate change is going to throw.

Droughts.

Freak cold snaps.

Pests and diseases.

And a plant that can thrive in a hotter environment.

So genetically speaking, there are a number of ways we can approach this.

There is the genetic equivalent of the moonshot.

And then we have approaches which, you know, are much less pie in the sky.

But let's start with the moonshots.

Could we put on some boots and start trampling through tropical forests around the world to find a coffee tree that genetically is one that we haven't really seen before?

But it is going to be the perfect tree for farmers.

To answer the question, it first helps to understand just how big is coffee's genetic universe?

And is it big enough to have a solution for us?

So when it comes to the coffee that you actually drank this morning, you know, coffee that's cultivated commercially, it will have been one of two species.

Arabica.

And if you love specialty coffee, you will be drinking this exclusively.

Or if you're a fan of instant coffee, or perhaps you like a dark Italian roast, it could be Robusta as well.

Of the hundreds of millions and probably even billions of coffee trees out there, 99.99999% chance it is either Robusta or Arabica.

But there is so much more.

And to understand how much more, I spoke with Aaron Davis.

Aaron Davis

I am head of crops and global change at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, and also head of coffee research.

And Aaron has spent the better part of his career cataloguing different coffee species.

Well, when I came into coffee, there were about 80 species known to science.

And one of my first posts, in fact, was to look at coffee and to understand the species diversity to see if there were any undiscovered species.

So we've added about 30 or 40 species over the last 20 years or so.

And then we've added other species in on the basis of molecular data and DNA data.

So in 2022, we've now got 130 coffea species.

James Harper

So to date, we know there are at least 130 species of coffee, also known as coffea.

Coffea is just a prefix that says this thing is a species of coffee, like Coffea Arabica, Coffea Canifora, which is the science name for Robusta.

Now, let me just quickly clarify.

We're not talking varieties of coffee.

We're talking species.

The difference?

So you may have seen on your bags of coffee, things like Tipica, Vermont, SL28.

All those are varieties of Arabica.

But we're talking species.

So Arabica, Robusta, and then 128 others.

So how much genetic diversity is there at the coffea species level?

This is crazy.

It's just like, this is the funkiest looking coffee trees I've ever seen in my life.

So a few months back, I was in southwest Ethiopia visiting an agricultural research laboratory.

And I recorded my reaction seeing, for the first time in my life, different coffee species.

Oh my, that's a coffee tree as well?

Oh my goodness, what?

Now listen, I've visited coffee farms in about a dozen countries or so.

I know what an Arabica tree looks like.

It's quite distinctive, like a spindly bush.

But I'd never seen one of the other 129 species of coffee.

That is like, that's like, literally, it's a two-story building.

These other species of coffee look nothing like Arabica.

The trunk of the tree is, it's as wide as my waist.

So you know, just eyeballing the situation.

At the species level, there is a tremendous diversity.

Now, next thing you're going to tell me is that that tree is also a coffee tree.

So much diversity, in fact.

Sometimes I couldn't even tell if it was coffee at all.

That one is not a coffee tree.

Do you know jackfruit?

That's a jackfruit tree.

Okay, that one's actually a jackfruit tree.

Okay, okay.

And my confusion inspired me to ask a really basic question to Aaron Davis.

So what defines a coffee species?

Aaron Davis

It's actually quite, that's actually a quite easy question to answer.

All coffee species or coffee species have coffee beans.

So they may differ considerably in size and dimensions.

But essentially, if you put them in a roasting machine, a sample roaster, you gave them a five-minute roast, they would smell rather like coffee in most cases.

So different species of tree look super different.

And so do their beans.

Yeah, huge variation.

So racemosa, the beans are about the size of a small lentil.

I mean, they're tiny.

And this week I've been cupping libericas, which are sort of twice the size of arabica.

They would have a fruit about the size of a walnut.

James Harper

So let's get back to this idea of the moonshot.

We've discovered over 100 species of coffee.

Could one of those be the silver bullet for coffee farmers?

Aaron Davis

Well, we do have several candidates.

Liberica is the lowest hanging fruit amongst that group.

James Harper

So let's examine our first contender, liberica.

This thing is like a giant bulbous, out-of-control hedgerow.

It grows 10 meters high.

The leaves are as big as your face.

Aaron Davis

I also think you could probably go to a forest in Africa and find a commercial liberica quite quickly because it already has most of the things that you're looking for.

James Harper

So liberica is super hardy.

It has the potential to withstand the effects of a changing climate.

But the problem is in the cup, the way it tastes.

Aaron Davis

Its profile is different to arabica.

It's different to robusta.

Will it find acceptability amongst coffee drinkers?

James Harper

So liberica, yes, it is coffee, broadly tastes like coffee.

But is the rest of the world ready to embrace a strange new flavor of coffee?

But listen, there are plenty more species we can look at.

What about a species that tastes a lot more like arabica?

You know, what everyone's already very familiar with and really loves.

And we do have a contender there.

Aaron Davis

Stenophylla is one of the species which does have a more complex cup profile, and I think would be of interest to the speciality coffee drinker.

Somebody who's looking for something that's rather like arabica, but somewhat different, something else to offer.

James Harper

And stenophylla actually does look a bit like arabica too.

It's also a spindly bush with quite large leaves, just quite a bit shorter.

But the problem with stenophylla is that it's not very interesting for coffee farmers.

Aaron Davis

But its yields are much lower.

Finding a plant that's ready to go in terms of fulfilling all the criteria required for a crop plant is a really big call.

James Harper

Because stenophylla doesn't grow that many coffee cherries, a farmer isn't making very much money out of it.

And that's a problem another strong contender, Coffea eugenioides, is facing.

Tastes great, but it might not earn enough money.

Aaron Davis

I think eugenioides is a case in point there because for me that profile is delicious, it's wonderful, super sweet, very low in caffeine.

But the yields are incredibly low because it produces very few cherries per plant and because the beans are tiny.

James Harper

So we have contenders for the moonshot, but none of them are ready to go.

Farmers won't want to plant these coffees.

But a part of me is hopeful that we will find the moonshot eventually.

Because a lot of the coffee that we drink today was once upon a time itself a moonshot.

You know Robusta's been amazingly successful.

Robusta is one of those two species I mentioned earlier that has grown commercially across the world and it accounts for almost one in every two coffee plants you're going to see.

And the thing is, it only started getting commercially grown surprisingly recently.

Aaron Davis

It was only known to science at the end of the 1800s, only came into commercial production at the beginning of the 20th century.

And it has transformed the drinking experience for arguably almost everybody in the world.

It's done exceptionally well and of course now it's a multi-billion dollar commodity and provides us with 40% of our coffee.

James Harper

And why was Robusta so successful?

Well, I'll give you a clue.

It's not because of its flavor.

Although I have had a few good Robustas before, I'm not a massive fan and neither is Aaron.

Aaron Davis

I know there are more agreeable Robustas out there and I've just cupped some of them and they cup really rather well.

But generally the cup profile is not there, the sweetness isn't there, the complexity is not there.

James Harper

No, the reason Robusta is so popular is because it is so easy to grow.

Here's Sarada Krishnan.

Sarada Krishnan

I'm the director of programs with the Global Crop Diversity Trust and I also am the executive director of the International Women's Coffee Alliance.

James Harper

Sarada did her PhD way back looking at plant genetic resources and biodiversity and she spent a number of years in Madagascar looking at different coffee species and how they performed.

And she explained to me that Robusta is a popular plant for farmers because it does what it says on the tin.

Sarada Krishnan

As its name indicates, Robusta is more robust because it can grow in much lower altitudes and they have a higher climate envelope.

So that allows it to be much more resilient.

James Harper

Robusta also grows many cherries per tree.

This is the yield and the more yield a farmer has per tree, the more money they can make.

So that's the moonshot.

What about something a bit more attainable?

Another genetic solution could be to mix Coffea arabica with another species of coffee with traits that we want.

And in fact, that is actually how arabica even came to be in the first place.

So Coffea arabica is itself a cross between two coffee species, Robusta and Coffea eugenoides.

And in many ways, it was the perfect marriage.

Sarada Krishnan

The combination Robusta is considered it has higher caffeine and eugenoides has lower caffeine.

And then the combination gives us the perfect combination of caffeine and flavor because the flavor comes from the eugenoides part of it.

Eugenoides is quite flavorful.

And then the productivity side of it, that comes from the Robusta.

So I think it's a great combination.

James Harper

So here's an idea.

Why don't we get arabica coffee, the species arabica, which we know tastes great.

And let's find a really super hardy plant, even hardier than Robusta and cross those two together.

Well, yes, we could.

But there is something weird about arabica that makes it very unique relative to all the other coffee species.

And why, historically speaking, we've been constrained when it comes to finding genetic solutions to coffee.

Sarada Krishnan

Arabica coffee is what we call a tetraploid.

James Harper

Arabica is a tetraploid, whereas almost all other species of coffee are diploids.

Diploids and tetraploids.

This is a way of saying how many sets of chromosomes a species has in its DNA.

So you, me, in our DNA, we are diploids, just like actually all the other species of coffee, except for arabica.

Sarada Krishnan

So we as humans, we are diploids.

We have two sets of chromosomes.

Half of our sets of chromosomes comes from our father and the other half from the mother.

When an embryo is formed, meiosis happens where the mother's chromosomes are split in half and father's are split in half and then they merge.

So you get the same number of chromosomes as your individual parents.

James Harper

Now, humans, we're mammals.

And it's almost guaranteed that a mammal will not have more than two sets of chromosomes.

But of course, plants are very different to mammals.

Sarada Krishnan

Plants have a tendency to have multiple sets of chromosomes.

So they're what we call polyploidy.

So they can be tetraploid, pentaploid, hexaploid, octoploid.

James Harper

Octoploid?

Sarada Krishnan

Yes, eight sets of chromosomes.

Holy hell.

Yeah, so they can have different chromosomes.

So coffee is mostly diploid except for arabica coffee.

And the reason arabica coffee became tetraploid is because it was a combination within the highlands of Ethiopia or South Sudan.

The parental species are Coffea canephora, which is the robusta coffee and Coffea eugenioides.

So hybridization happened between them and probably meiosis didn't happen.

Where both the genomes contributed equal number of chromosomes to form arabica coffee.

And it became a tetraploid.

James Harper

And now here's the thing.

In nature, two different species can reproduce.

You know, a mule is the byproduct of a donkey and a horse.

And it can also happen in plants.

And when the two species that are reproducing, if they have the same number of chromosomes, let's say they're both diploids, there's a reasonable chance that offspring will survive.

And they will have the same number of chromosomes as their parents.

If their parents have two each, they will also have two.

And in the case of arabica, what should have happened is it too receives one set of chromosomes, one from robusta, one from eugenioides.

But in a complete fluke of nature, this didn't happen with arabica.

We think it received both sets of chromosomes from both parents.

So it now has four sets of chromosomes.

It went from a diploid to a tetraploid.

Tetra, like Tetris.

Each shape that falls down the screen when you're playing Tetris is made up of four boxes.

Tetra.

Now, when I say this is a fluke, of course, it happens in nature, but the chances of it happening are very, very small.

Sarada Krishnan

I mean, it might be once in a lifetime event.

James Harper

So why does it matter that arabica is a tetraploid, whereas almost all other species of coffee are diploids?

Well, it makes the process of crossing arabica with other coffee species much more complicated and expensive.

Sarada Krishnan

So typically what you do is any diploid, if you want to cross with arabica, you need to double the number of chromosomes of that.

And you can do that.

There is a chemical called colchicine.

And by treating the diploid plant with colchicine, you can double the number of chromosomes of it.

And then it makes it easier to cross it with arabica.

James Harper

Right.

But that takes a bit of expertise, a bit of time, a bit of money.

Sarada Krishnan

Yes, of course.

James Harper

So the fact that arabica, it's kind of sitting apart in its kind of tetraploid kind of universe, it's making it harder for us to breed in other species into arabica.

I see that.

Sarada Krishnan

But with molecular techniques, it is going to make it maybe a little bit easier.

James Harper

Now, these molecular techniques, we have them today.

They're great.

But the problem is for most of coffee's history, we didn't have them.

So we couldn't cross arabica with other species of coffee.

So essentially what that meant is when people tried to get new genetic strains of coffee, they just bred arabica with arabica.

It would have been basically impossible to breed arabica, which is a tetraploid with any other coffee species, which are diploids.

So for a long time, coffee breeders just didn't have very much genetic diversity to play with.

And to make matters even worse, because of colonization and the way in which coffee spread around the world, often by Europeans at gunpoint, only a couple varieties of arabica coffee were even planted around the world in the first place.

So quick recap on the history of arabica coffee.

Arabica coffee is growing wild in Ethiopia and South Sudan.

Sarada Krishnan

And around the 14th century, the plants were taken from Ethiopia to Yemen.

And it came from very few plants that were taken.

And so Yemen is the center of domestication.

And it was from Yemen that the plants spread around the world.

So there were two lineages that were spread.

One led to the variety tipica, and the other one led to the variety bourbon.

And the bourbon and the tipica have been the two main varieties that have spread around the world.

And so from the diversity that you have in Ethiopia, it narrowed by the time it went to Yemen.

And from Yemen, it even went much narrower, the genetic diversity as it spread around the world.

James Harper

So what this all means is that when you zoom into a country like Guatemala, Brazil, Kenya,

and you have their governments trying to develop new coffee varieties,

you know, to combat drought or pest diseases,

because of colonization, because the tetraploid diploid thing,

they have a very narrow pool to select traits from in the first place,

which ultimately means that as a species,

Coffea arabica is particularly prone to the effects of climate change.

So let me recap where we are.

The chances of finding a new species of coffee that's going to work for coffee farmers and us drinkers, it's a moonshot, it might happen.

We have to keep trying, but don't expect results anytime soon.

Next comes selective breeding.

And there it is more promising because many of the coffees that we do enjoy, for example, the SL variety from Kenya, which was developed back in the 30s, and has gorgeous notes of blueberries, they've all come from selective breeding programs.

But the problem is that in these breeding programs, they always use arabica coffees.

They're crossing arabica with arabica, which means these plants aren't amazing at withstanding the effects of climate change.

But thankfully now we do have the tools to cross arabica with other species.

However, there's another massive problem.

Because here's the thing.

Coffee is a tree.

And it takes coffee trees a number of years to even produce cherries in the first place to then propagate the next generation of trees.

So what that means is to even genetically develop a new strain of coffee, it's just a massive time sink.

And to unpack this further, I spoke with Hanna Neuschwander.

Hanna Neuschwander

And I am the Director of Communication and Strategy at World Coffee Research.

James Harper

And World Coffee Research is the specialty coffee industry's coordination body for genetic research globally.

And I asked Hannah, look, imagine I have in my hand a little coffee tree.

I want to give this specific variety of tree to coffee farmers.

How long would it take for a farmer to plant this sort of coffee tree in their coffee farm?

Hanna Neuschwander

In traditional plant breeding, which is pretty much what most coffee breeding still is these days, to create a stabilized pure line variety that you can distribute to farmers as seed, which is also historically been the way it's done, it would take 25 to 30 years.

James Harper

25 to 30 years?

Hanna Neuschwander

You need about six or seven generations in order to stabilize a variety so that it breeds true and so that you can save the seed and get offspring that will resemble the parents.

And, you know, coffee trees take, it depends on the genetics, but generally between three and five years to mature.

So you have this basic math, right?

It's three to five times six to seven.

James Harper

Now, there is some good news because you can bring that time down by using cloning.

Technically, they're called F1 hybrids.

I won't get into the details about how you do it, but I have actually covered this in another podcast I make called Adventures in Coffee, and I'll link it in the show notes.

But even here, using F1 hybrids, you know, cloning.

Hanna Neuschwander

It still takes time to, even with this approach, F1 hybrids still take, you know, 10 to 15 years to make sure that they really are going to perform well for farmers.

James Harper

And so we can absolutely breed new coffees, which are resistant to the effects of climate change.

And although it's on the scale of decades, and farmers are experiencing climate change right now, it's still worth doing because genetic research lasts a long time.

For example, a very popular variety you'll find across Kenya is SL.

And it was the product of breeding programs back in the 1930s, where at the time they wanted to breed a more drought resistant variety.

And it's still being used today, almost 100 years later.

So this research has to happen, but the results won't be immediate.

And this is where I am actually quite concerned, because there is another problem.

In fact, probably the biggest problem.

Hannah Neuschwander argues that we are not investing enough today in genetic development.

Hanna Neuschwander

So there's a kind of like rough math that we use.

It's based on some research that was done by agricultural economists at the USDA.

James Harper

The US Department of Agriculture.

Hanna Neuschwander

That says that roughly about 1% of the production value of a crop should be reinvested in crop improvement.

Crop improvement, meaning basically breeding.

So coffee has a global production value of $18 billion, which means coffee should be spending about $180 million a year globally on crop improvement.

There is not good transparent information about how much is being spent on coffee breeding.

But if you were to add up the major kind of programs that do invest in it, if you add all those up, even being like extremely generous, there's really no way that they amount to more than about $80 million, a couple dozen million.

And so, you know, we are pretty comfortable with estimating that the gap, the investment gap in coffee crop improvement is well over $100 million.

James Harper

Globally, as an industry, we are probably less than halfway to where we need to be to keep coffee thriving in the face of a changing climate.

Hanna Neuschwander

And the investment is relatively small.

The absolute number sounds kind of big and scary, but the percentage is very small.

James Harper

So essentially what we have to do is increase the price that roasters pay for their green coffee by 1% and get that money into the hands of researchers.

And jobs are good.

We're done.

Hanna Neuschwander

That's it.

That's a totally fair way to do the math.

Yeah.

James Harper

So we've just been on a journey whizzing through coffee's genetic universe.

We've seen the moon shots and we've seen what we can do when we collide this coffee species with that coffee species.

But now let's turn our gaze back to earth and zoom into Kenya.

Smack bang on the equator on the right flank of Africa And poking its head above the clouds is Mount Kenya, Africa's tallest mountain.

And if you zoom in even further, I'm in a car with Bernard, Trabocca’s agronomist on the ground, as we're driving up and down the foothills of Mount Kenya, visiting coffee farms.

We're visiting some coffee farmers because I wanted to know how they're using the tools at disposal, including the new coffee varieties that were developed by their country's breeding programs to withstand climate change and continue to grow delicious coffee for us.

And what I found actually very inspiring is that there is absolutely a way that roasters, importers, cafes, even us, you know, regular coffee drinkers, there are things that we can do to ensure farmers can withstand the effects of a changing climate.

At least for the time being.

Now, Bernard is showing me around in the car because this is what he does with any roaster who's interested in buying Kenyan coffees from the farmers that Trabocca works.

Bernard Gichimu

We'll actually go with them the same trip that we are going because they they like to meet these farmers and see where this coffee is grown and how it is grown.

Let's have a look.

James Harper

So the first farm we visit on this trip is actually not a farm that works with Trabocca.

This was one of Bernard's friend's farms because he was delivering some supplies But I want to tell you about it because it really gives you a sense of just how hard it can be to grow coffee and even just a couple of places walking through some coffee bushes.

The trees on my left, the trees on my right, they were all being attacked.

The first one was hit with coffee berry disease.

James Harper

So the coffee cherries just look really shriveled up black and dry.

Bernard Gichimu

Yeah the whole berry turns black and falls.

And then the one next door was being attacked by the coffee berry moth.

An insect that you can see it has done some holes.

There is also another one.

These ones you are seeing here.

James Harper

And then the third tree was being attacked by something different.

Oh my, they look really bad.

What's going on there?

Bernard Gichimu

That is another pest called the Kenya millebug.

James Harper

Imagine I had some bananas that were like really really black and old and then they got moldy.

That's what it looks like to me but like in coffee cherry form.

It was wild.

A few minutes stepping out of Bernard's car I learned about three pest diseases I'd never heard about before.

And they were just the tip of the iceberg.

Bernard Gichimu

Coffee is attacked by about 1,000 or more pests.

What?

A thousand pests?

A thousand.

James Harper

Does that include like funguses as well as insects?

Bernard Gichimu

I'm talking of insect pests.

Just insects?

James Harper

A thousand insects?

Bernard Gichimu

Yes.

Here in Kenya?

Yes.

Oh my goodness.

Only that now the major ones are few.

You can say about 10 or so.

Right.

Because you can count like the coffee berry borer, coffee berry moth, the scales, the millebugs, the leaf miner, the yellow-headed stem borer, and the white-headed stem borer.

There is also thrips.

There is a untestier bug.

I'm kind of flabbergasted.

James Harper

So a coffee tree could have like let's say five or six different you know insects attacking it in one time.

Bernard Gichimu

Even 10.

James Harper

Even 10?

James Harper

So if you're a farmer in Kenya, or indeed anywhere, you need to manage all these pests and that costs money.

Sprays, agricultural techniques, time, labor, and that's fine so long as you have the money.

So how do you get the money?

Now there are two major components to what a coffee farmer in Kenya is going to get paid.

The first, how many cherries they grow.

As we said before, the yield.

And cherries turn to beans which we then roast and drink.

And what they're going to get paid for those red cherries.

You know the price of the coffee.

Now let's focus on the yield.

As we were driving away from Bernard's friend's farm, I asked him about his friend's yield.

You know, how many coffee cherries does he get per tree?

Eight to ten.

So eight to ten kilos of red cherry per tree is actually pretty good by some of the standards we're going to see later on.

And indeed for most farmers in Kenya.

Bernard Gichimu

The average production per tree is about three kg, especially for the small-scale farmers.

James Harper

But it can be a lot lot more too.

Like the farm Bernard takes me to next.

Alvans Mutero

Alvans Mutero

James.

Alvins.

Alvins.

Nice to meet you.

James Harper

So we visit the farm of Alvins Mutero.

He's a man in his late 50s, former accountant, got two kids who work in the capital, Nairobi, and he has what is a relatively large farm in Kenya.

15 acres.

My coffee trees are better than last year.

Oh really?

Yeah.

So Alvins takes me through his farm and you just can't help but notice his trees.

They look absolutely glorious.

I mean these are these are very healthy looking coffee trees.

My god.

Bernard grabs the branch and he points right to the beginning of the stem, you know where it connects to the trunk of the tree.

Bernard Gichimu

When you see coffee that is bearing up to this point.

James Harper

Where the stem meets the trunk it's bursting with red cherries.

Bernard Gichimu

That is a healthy looking tree.

James Harper

Wow.

It's well managed.

So it's really clear that Alvins is going to get many coffee cherries per tree this year.

Alvans Mutero

I'm expecting around 20.

James Harper

20?

Yeah, if all goes well.

However, just a few years ago his trees were actually relatively barren and that's because.

Alvans Mutero

We were not paid very well.

So I could not make it.

James Harper

So Alvins used to sell his coffee here and there and also through the national auction system.

And the auction is not very good.

Yeah.

But things started changing when he began working with Troboca, a green bean supplier based out of the Netherlands.

And essentially there's a commitment by Troboca where they will buy every single one of Alvins' cherries so long as they meet a quality threshold.

And legally speaking, Troboca actually can't buy the coffee cherries directly from Alvins.

It's a whole long story.

But they manage it through some local partners on the ground.

And they also pay one of the highest prices in the entire region.

Organic fertilizer.

So beforehand you didn't use fertilizer?

Organic fertilizer?

No, no.

Which means that Alvins has since been able to invest in fertilizer.

Which he wasn't doing before.

So you basically as a business you weren't making enough money to be able to invest in fertilizer.

Hanna Neuschwander

Yeah.

James Harper

So Alvins on the whole is doing very well.

You expanded it?

Yeah.

Each of Alvins' trees produces double the red cherries of the farm we saw earlier.

And what varieties do you have on the farm?

But when I learned what variety these trees were...

Alvans Mutero

Only SL.

James Harper

Only SL.

I was surprised they're producing so many cherries because they are really old.

Hanna Neuschwander

These were varieties that were developed by the kind of colonial government back in the 30s.

James Harper

This is Hannah Neuschwander again of World Coffee Research.

And she went on to tell me there's a big problem with these SL varieties developed back in the 1930s.

Hanna Neuschwander

They're very susceptible to major diseases and pests.

And over time that has become really economically damaging for Kenyan farmers.

James Harper

And it was actually the outbreak of a major disease that pushed the Kenyan government to develop a newer variety back in the 60s.

Hanna Neuschwander

And so in the late 60s in particular there was a huge outbreak of CBD, coffee berry disease.

And it basically wiped out more than half of the production of Kenya for that year.

Which is devastating.

James Harper

And the Kenyan government eventually released Riru 11 in 1985.

And then more recently Batian in 2010.

And if you do the maths that's 25 years to release a single new coffee species.

Alvans Mutero

Everything is expensive in the city.

James Harper

Compared to the varieties that Alphonse has on his farm, SL, Riru 11 and Batian are both more resistant to coffee berry disease and coffee leaf rust.

But Alphonse with his disease prone trees is in a good place.

Because the leaves on his coffee trees all have a shiny metallic green blue tinge to them.

Copper.

He had applied a copper fungicide and ordinarily it works great.

Bernard Gichimu

There is a time you can come here and you don't see any CBD in the farms.

James Harper

But when we were looking at some of his trees I noticed that there was very little coffee berry disease.

Because the cherries themselves look red and ripe.

They weren't like black and rotting off.

Bernard Gichimu

The damage is on the lower side.

James Harper

However on the underside of some leaves I saw some little yellow dots.

Bernard Gichimu

These are enough to cause this leaf to fall.

James Harper

Coffee leaf rust.

Bernard Gichimu

These are millions of spores that are here.

Oh it's like a fungus.

Yes these are fungus.

This is a fungal disease.

James Harper

And over time coffee leaf rust kills coffee leaves.

Which then fall off.

And then the coffee plant can't photosynthesize.

So it has less energy to produce coffee beans in the first place.

But the thing is that copper fungicide should stop coffee leaf rust.

And it does.

So the person who sprayed did not do a good job.

No they sprayed the wrong side.

The sprayers had gone from the top down.

Got the coffee berries themselves.

Therefore stopping coffee berry disease.

But they hadn't gone from the bottom up as well.

Getting the underside of the leaves where rust propagates.

Bernard Gichimu

So they forgot there is another disease.

James Harper

And Bernard explained to me that because of greater fluctuations in temperature.

Bernard Gichimu

So the sunshine increases the temperatures for the far gas to proliferate.

James Harper

Coffee leaf rust is becoming more prevalent.

And one question I had for Alvin's was.

Why are you persisting with these SL varieties?

Which are really susceptible to coffee leaf rust.

To coffee berry disease.

Ruru 11 and Batian are more resistant to these diseases.

Plant them instead.

And you can save on all this money you're spending on copper fungicide.

And the answers Alvin's gave me really opened my eyes into the business of a coffee farm.

So the first big reason Alvin's continues with the SL varieties is because he inherited them from his father.

And changing coffee plants is not cheap.

How long would it take you to to see any kind of new revenue?

After four or five years.

That's a long time.

Yeah.

And I realized that being a coffee farmer is a bit like being a landlord.

You have this land.

And you have tenants.

Your tenants just happen to be coffee plants.

And you're always asking yourself.

Will my tenants pay rent?

And the thing is, if you want to change your tenants, you have to evict them and then wait four years before the new tenants actually pay any rent.

That's four years of no income while the coffee trees grow big enough to then start producing fruit.

And four years of no income.

I mean, that can be a problem if you're not earning enough money in the first place.

It cost me a lot of money.

But what if you bought a new coffee farm?

But here's another thing I found quite odd when I first heard it.

What if you bought like a farm next door and you expanded?

And let's say there was no coffee on the farm.

What would you plant?

SL.

Still?

Yeah.

If Alvin's was to start a new coffee farm and plant afresh, he still wouldn't choose the newer varieties.

He would stick with the old varieties.

Alvans Mutero

Yeah.

James Harper

Tastes good.

I'm used to it.

And the more I spoke of Alvin's, I understood that for him, his business model works.

He has a buyer in Traboca who paid good prices.

He can manage the pests and diseases.

Coffee roasters like the flavors he's growing.

It's the old adage, right?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

It's really beautiful up here.

I mean, we're kind of surrounded by these rolling hills and it's super, super green and nice and fresh and cool.

Now there's one more thing I want to show you about Alvin's farm.

As we were standing in between his coffee trees, I looked up and I noticed the sky was filled with quite dark looking clouds.

And it occurred to me that Alvin's green and lush coffee farm looked like it had been spared by that drought that made everything else we saw driving up here so yellow and dry.

Bernard Gichimu

He's actually the one that is within the normal cycle.

James Harper

And part of the reason is that Alvin's is, well, quite lucky.

Even Mount Kenya is here.

His farm sits in a little pocket in the foothills of Mount Kenya and borders a national forest.

Alvans Mutero

And the forest is just here.

You're just in the right place.

Yeah, I'm in the right place.

Very lucky.

Yeah.

James Harper

And for me, this was a realization.

All this time I've been thinking about climate change as this thing that just affects everybody equally, but it really doesn't.

Some farms get hit by drought much worse and some farms get off relatively unscathed.

And I say relatively unscathed.

Bernard Gichimu

This year has been very dry.

Very, very dry.

James Harper

Because actually, Bernard confided to me in the car as we were driving away he will also be affected.

That this drought will also affect Alvin's farm.

He just hasn't realized it yet.

Bernard Gichimu

Up here they have been receiving some showers because they are at a high altitude.

But even that, the quantity of rainfall they have received is still not enough.

James Harper

And because there's not enough rain, Alvin's cherries are probably going to be a bit on the lighter side.

So they can't carry as much flavor.

But nevertheless, it looks like it's going to be a good year for him.

And as Bernard and I drove away from Alvin's farm, I reflected on his situation.

He's in a good place.

He feels the effects of climate change a little bit, but not that much.

Alvans Mutero

He grows a very high quality coffee.

James Harper

And it revealed to me that yes, climate change produces problems.

But sometimes, straightforward economics is the solution.

To have a successful farm, Alvin's needed enough money for fertilizer and disease control.

And he's getting that through the high prices Trebuka are paying, and the guarantee they'll buy all his cherries if he chooses to grow more of them.

So for a larger farmer like Alvin's, who's in a relatively lucky position, I'm pretty sure he won't stop producing delicious coffee for us anytime soon.

But in Kenya, he is in the minority.

Kenya has hundreds of thousands of coffee farmers, but most of them grow coffee on perhaps an acre or less.

Alvin's with his 15 acres is huge by comparison.

And there we are.

Here we go, Siriku Coffee Growers Cooperative Society Limited.

And after visiting Alvin's, Bernard drove me up and down the foothills of Mount Kenya for a couple more hours, because I wanted to see how climate change is affecting smaller scale coffee farmers.

Bernard Gichimu

Now we get to the end of the road.

We leave our cars here.

James Harper

Bernard parks up at the end of a dirt road.

The sun's beating down now.

It's getting pretty hot at one o'clock.

And we begin to walk down a very narrow patch of land.

So we're stepping through a fence, a wooden fence, coming down a garden trail.

This is what a more typical coffee farm looks like in Kenya.

And you know, to my European eyes, it looks less like a farm and more like just a very big garden.

It reminded me how here in Berlin, on the outskirts of the city, you have Kleingartens, like little gardens that, you know, Berliners go to to enjoy their weekends.

Or perhaps like in Italy, you have a very large vegetable patch attached to your house, an Orto.

And although this was the same size as a Kleingarten and an Orto, this was a fully functioning, commercially minded farm, just smaller than the ones I'm used to seeing in Europe.

And just like commercial European farms, on the left, we have someone's house.

The owners of this farm also have their house on the land, washing, drying on a line, corrugated metal roof, big black water tank.

And opposite the house, as we're walking down this hill, are some other crops this small hall of farmer is growing.

James Harper

So we're walking through a field, a small patch of, what is this?

Bernard Gichimu

This is Napier grass for the cows.

James Harper

Ah, for the cows.

And this Napier grass was in a very sorry state.

Cyrus Kaloki Waiganjo

As you can see, the general effect of the drought and the climate change, normally here there is a lot of Napier grass for the cows.

But right now, for a whole season, that is what we can obtain.

Oh, wow.

And explaining this to me is the chairman of the Thiriku Cooperative.

James Harper

My name is Cyrus Kaloki Waiganjo.

And the farmer who manages the land that we're on right now is part of the Thiriku Cooperative.

Seeing a lot of patches, I'd say of this field, half the field is just red dirt, red ground, which would have otherwise been Napier grass.

Cyrus Kaloki Waiganjo

It would be Napier grass.

So the effect of this change, not only is it affecting coffee, it is also affecting other plants that are very important to the smallholder.

James Harper

So we continue walking past these dried out patches of Napier grass.

From here down to the bottom of the farm, this is the coffee area.

And after a couple of dozen paces, we arrive at the coffee trees.

So how many bushes are we looking at here?

220 plants.

Cyrus Kaloki Waiganjo

The entire piece is 1.2 acres.

James Harper

Of which half is planted with coffee.

Half is planted with coffee.

Got it.

So for the family living here, coffee is a major cash crop because half of their land is being used for coffee.

Cyrus Kaloki Waiganjo

Not about.

It is a major cash crop.

James Harper

It is.

It is the major cash crop.

Yes.

So these 220 coffee trees are slightly more than half an acre of land.

This is a critical source of income for the family that live in the house we just passed.

These trees are going to pay for shoes, school fees, transportation to the nearest city.

And 220 trees might sound a lot.

But, you know, a typical farmer in Latin America might have thousands.

And as I gaze across this acre or so of land, I'm wondering to myself, why is it so small?

And there's actually a clue resting in the corner of the coffee farm.

Cyrus Kaloki Waiganjo

That's where he was buried.

That's where he was buried.

James Harper

I see.

A tombstone.

And the man who's been laid to rest here on the farm, he owned the land beyond the narrow fences that carve out this 1.2 acres of land.

But it got subdivided amongst his children.

Cyrus Kaloki Waiganjo

So each one of them will get a smaller part.

The coffee bushes that were 400, each will get about 120, etc.

James Harper

Oh, that's really interesting.

So that creates a problem because how much land do you need to be economically sustainable?

How small can you go?

Cyrus Kaloki Waiganjo

Less than three acres is no longer sustainable, but it is still being done.

So you'll find even a small fortune like this one being once more subdivided.

James Harper

And this was the moment where it clicked for me why you need cooperatives like Thiriku in the first place.

So when you hear estimates that there are hundreds of thousands of coffee farmers in Kenya, the vast majority will maybe have a couple of hundred bushes at most.

And with just a couple of hundred bushes, it's just not worth your while processing the coffee yourself or even trying to find a buyer.

It's just not enough.

You have to combine your cherries with other farmers in the area so you have enough to process and sell.

And that's what a cooperative does.

So up the trail, we saw yellow dry napier grass, devastated by this drought.

And this small scale farmer's coffee trees were also being affected by climate change.

Bernard Gichimu

Because of climate change, you can see this tree has all sorts of berries.

James Harper

Bernard points to a branch where there are coffee cherries at every stage of maturation.

There are tiny little green beads just starting to grow.

And right next door to these green hard beads are coffee cherries, deep dark red, hanging on for dear life.

So this messed up rain cycle is increasing the cost for this smallholder farmer.

Whereas before they maybe could have sprayed once or twice a year and perhaps hide pickers for the same amount of time, now they have to do it continuously.

And this costs a lot more money.

But now I have good news.

Because this is where coffee genetics can come to the rescue.

And indeed, on this small farm, this farmer is using one of the improved varieties that were developed after that terrible coffee berry disease outbreak back in the 60s.

This is Batian variety.

This is Batian.

Cyrus Kaloki Waiganjo

And Batian is doing what it was designed to do.

So that we see the prevalence of disease CBD is much less compared to the next farm.

James Harper

This farmer's coffee trees are resisting coffee berry disease.

And they're saving money because they don't have to apply as much copper fungicide as the farm next door, which has the old SL varieties.

So it was a matter of mitigating against the high cost of farm inputs.

Gotcha.

And it was at this point during my visit, I was like, aha, okay, yes.

The Kenyan government's decades-long investment into genetic research.

It's having an effect.

It's doing what it's supposed to do.

Genetic research really matters.

And we have to prioritize it.

Hi.

Nice to meet you.

But it's also not the whole story.

And this was revealed to me when I walked through the fence into the farm next door and I met Grace.

Nice to meet you.

So Grace, she's 40, lives on this three acre farm with her two children.

She looks after her aging mother.

Her brothers are white collar professionals.

Grace is also educated.

And with many of the other coffee farmers I spoke to at Thiriku, I needed the chairman to help me translate.

But Grace spoke fluent English.

So as we're standing under the shade of one of our coffee trees and her son is grabbing her legs, I asked her about her coffee business.

How much land did your mother have?

So Grace's aging mother still owns this three acres of land and Grace is due to inherit a quarter of it.

So you inherited 72 trees?

What varieties of trees?

But they are SL trees, which as we've heard are quite prone to coffee berry disease and coffee leaf rust.

And this is the moment my eyes were opened yet again.

This entire mountainside was affected by drought and Grace's trees are very susceptible to disease.

And in these very imperfect conditions, these last few years, Grace actually tripled the number of cherries on each tree.

And it happened because she had been applying fertilizer.

But why now and not before?

So the story is, a few years ago, the Thiriku Cooperative, which Grace is a part of, were selling a lot of their coffee through the national auction system, just like Alvin's.

And like Alvin's, Grace got low prices for her coffee.

Grace

The payment I received was that shilling per kg.

James Harper

30?

Grace

30.

James Harper

And when you received 30, what did you think about that?

Grace

I just lost hope.

James Harper

You lost hope?

Grace

Yeah.

James Harper

So five years ago, when you were paid 30 shillings for one kilogram of cherry, you said you lost hope.

And so how did that affect the farm and what you did on the farm?

Grace

Somehow, I left it.

I did not concentrate.

James Harper

Yeah.

But then, a few years ago, Triboka entered into a similar arrangement as they had with Alvin's, where essentially, they committed to purchasing all the coffee cherries delivered by the Thiriku Cooperative farmers, so long as they reach a certain quality level, and the farmers would earn 100 shillings per kilo, which is over three times what Grace was earning five years ago.

And while it's not the highest in Kenya, it is certainly the highest it has been in this area for a long time.

And this arrangement changed how Grace manages the coffee trees she's inheriting from her mother.

How many kilograms per tree were you getting before?

And what's the change now?

Grace

I was getting about half.

Half, one, two.

But last year, the kgs I got, it's like two kgs per tree.

But now, I have a hope like four.

James Harper

You're going to get four?

Grace

Yeah.

James Harper

Wow.

And what's the difference?

What did you do differently to the tree?

Grace

This organic fertilizer, I recommed it.

And the foliar feeds, I don't apply anything else.

James Harper

And so because of this new arrangement with Triboka, Grace grew from half a kilo a tree and is now hoping for four.

And even at four, it's still a fifth of what Alvins hopes to do this year.

But I got the impression for Grace, she was very happy with this arrangement.

So what happened after your cooperative began working with Triboka?

Grace

I was really happy.

And I went back to the farm and I'm working towards to achieve my goal in life.

James Harper

Okay.

What is your goal in life?

Grace

To be successful in life.

To be a super farmer because I have a passion in farming.

James Harper

What will you do with the money you earn?

Grace

I will start rearing cows.

James Harper

And as Grace is talking, she rests her hand on her son's shoulder.

Grace

And now I will start investing for these children.

Because they are university material.

James Harper

Oh, interesting.

So you'll invest it into their education?

Grace

Yeah, in education.

Alvans Mutero

Interesting.

Good.

Continue.

Thank you very much for your time.

James Harper

And as I said goodbye to Grace and walked back up the trail, it was obvious to me that Grace knows what she needs to do to have a higher yield, to grow more coffee cherries.

The thing that was stopping her was the price and a commitment from a buyer.

Now she has a price she's happy with and a commitment from Tribuka.

And that's all it takes to incentivize a coffee farmer like Grace to make investments in her farm and grow more and more coffee every year, which we can enjoy, even in the face of climate change.

But I also want to make clear that this doesn't apply to all smallholder coffee farmers in Kenya.

Cyrus Kaloki Waiganjo

He's not able to put sufficient inputs into the ground.

James Harper

For example, one of the Thariku farmers I met, they wanted to apply more fertilizer, more organic fungicide.

They knew there was a commitment from Tribuka.

They knew the prices were good.

Cyrus Kaloki Waiganjo

It's quite expensive.

James Harper

But they just couldn't set aside the money for the initial investment.

Cyrus Kaloki Waiganjo

He does not have sufficient financial muscle to buy the items that will be required to put into the ground.

James Harper

Smallholder farmers, like any business owner, need some money to make the investments in the first place, to take advantage of this sort of arrangement.

James Harper

It was a pleasure to meet you.

Thank you for your time.

James Harper

So my journey, our journey, exploring coffee genetics and the realities for Kenyan coffee farmers facing the curveballs of climate change is coming to an end.

And you might be wondering, well, how can I use everything that I've learned here to make better coffee at home?

Well, the fact is, your coffee is grown by farmers like Grace, like Alvin's.

The quality you taste in the cup, for example, those gorgeous blueberry notes you can sometimes find in amazing Kenyans, is a result of the relationship they have with their buyer.

We've seen how when there's a buyer who commits to a good price and buys all their coffee, farmers like Alvin's and Grace change how they manage their trees, which in turn translates to the flavors we love.

But most farmers in the world don't have that sort of relationship with their buyer.

Many coffee farmers, dare I say it, most coffee farmers are where they were, trying to combat the effects of climate change, but trying to do it with low prices and no commitments.

And climate change is only going to get worse.

And as climate change gets worse, it's only going to get harder for coffee farmers to grow tasty coffee and still turn a profit.

And so, if you want to make better coffee at home, well, it kind of starts by not making your coffee worse.

And I'm afraid if we continue what we're doing today, you know, the status quo, in 20 years, maybe even 10 years, your coffee in the morning, in the future, won't be as good as it is today, regardless of how you brew it.

The beans just won't have the potential for great flavors.

And if you want great flavors, you're going to have to pay a lot more for it.

And the solution to ensuring you can continue to taste those gorgeous notes of a great Kenyan, you know, those blueberries, and perhaps even more amazing flavors, the solution is to get more money into the hands of genetic researchers and coffee farmers.

And as we've explored, it's not a big ask.

For us coffee drinkers, it's pennies per cup.

And this is how we can do it.

If you are a roaster, an importer, a chain of cafes, you can support the work of World Coffee Research financially and help to close this massive investment gap we have in coffee.

I've put a link in the show notes where you can learn more.

But if you are a regular coffee drinker, there's a lot you can do as well.

Buy some of the coffees from the roasters and cafe chains who are working with World Coffee Research.

But how do I know who they are?

Trust me, they'll definitely tell you about it on their website.

And you can also support Alvin's and Grace and other farmers in Tariku by searching for their coffees.

I've definitely seen their coffees in many specialty cafes and roasters' websites.

Look them up.

I'll put some links in the show notes.

You know, climate change, it can feel really doom and gloom.

But as far as coffee is concerned, the good news is that it's cheap to fix.

We just have to get on with it and do it.

Now, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with peeps that you think would like it as well.

And here's something that I've seen on Instagram that's kind of cool.

Take a screenshot on your phone, like listening to the podcast, and then post that as a story.

And if you tag me at filterstoriespodcast, I'll repost it and I'll be able to thank you personally.

Speaking of thanking.