I'm very interested in what will happen once Howard Schultz opens his reserve cafes across the country, it could push for even higher standards across the industry and introduce more consumers to high quality coffee. Nothing wrong with that, except I don't think coffee is a sustainable industry due to the long-term effects of climate change.
It'll be dumb. I had to design three of these and nobody even remembers 'em anymore. I think coffee, like most agribusiness, will simply move north. If you go ask at Cloud Mountain what they're seeing Whatcom farmers plant in reflection of the changing climate, they answer, without hesitation, "wine."
Hmm. I'm not sure it's as easy as moving north. Things like leaf rust disease and the coffee beetle borer aren't likely to go away anytime soon, despite the amount of money going into combating them. In addition, altitude plays a significant role in the ability to grow coffee, and an Australian paper from this year cites a paper from 2015 projecting at worst, ...hotter weather and changes in rainfall patterns are projected to cut the area suitable for coffee in half by 2050 across different emissions scenarios. At best, places like Brazil and Mexico are going to have socioeconomic challenges facing their farmers, which play a not insignificant part of the agro-economics.