1. Presentation: Özkan DANIŞ

2. Brief: Cultivated coffee trees are under serious threat from climate change, disease and insect pests. The homogeneity of the crop makes it particularly vulnerable. Little scientific research has gone into cultivating coffee Scientists are now hurrying to introduce helpful new genes into the crop through crossbreeding methods.

3. Scientist gathered to discuss the uncertain future of Central American coffee. They had convened to discuss a serious threat: coffee rust, or roya, as it is known in Spanish. The rust is a fungus that infects the plants’ leaves. It has ravaged the region’s crop over the past few years, and slashed production by about 20 percent in 2012 compared with 2011.

4. The outbreak, which is still spreading, is just one crisis looming over coffee. “Most coffee varieties today aren’t likely to be able to tolerate disease and insect pressures, as well as increased heat and other environmental threats from climate change,”

5. Coffee, cannot adapt to heat or fend off disease, because it lacks crucial genetic diversity. Cultivated coffee is incredibly homogeneous. 70 percent of it comes from a single species, Coffea arabica. Nearly all of the coffee that has been cultivated over the past few centuries originated with just a handful of wild plants from Ethiopia.

7. The coffee rust fungus thrives in warm weather, and as temperatures rise, the fungus could spread to higher altitudes. Changes in rainfall might also give the fungus a boost. Fungicide sprays can combat roya, but the chemicals are expensive and may not work against emerging strains of the disease. The only real long-term solution is may be exploiting the adaptations that already exist in the gene pools of C. arabica and C. canephora (Robusta).

8. C. canephora is easier to grow and higher- yielding, but it tastes bitter. Scientists want to develop a plant that has the flavor of C. arabica and the temperament and yield of C. Canephora by crossing. A solution may be swaping coffee strains between regions and countries. But a long term solution is increasing the genetic variety of cultivated coffee plants.

9. There are roughly 125 known species of coffee on the earth. New species discovered in Madagascar. But these wild plants, like their cultivated counterparts, are in trouble. Up to 70% of them are in danger of extinction and 10% could be gone within a decade. Ethiopia itself poses another problem. The country where coffee originated curates a large collection of coffee plants that exist nowhere else but the government keeps them under lock

10. World Coffee Research estimates that the 2012 rust outbreak cost coffee farmers $548 million and cut workers’ pay by 15-20%. Roughly 441,000 jobs disappeared. If nothing is done, Central America’s coffee industry could be wiped out by 2050. Scientists believe much more coordinated, long-term effort was needed. For coffee to survive, it must become far more resilient.