I don’t mean to generate any panic, but I just want to bring your attention to a few real aspects of the great coffee industry. In my last journeys to the countries of origin (therefore, I’m speaking after experiencing personally), I realized once more how hard it is to grow coffee plants and, consequently, how hard the work to produce this fruit, before it arrives to our homes, is: the daily challenges for a producer get harder and harder.
In these past few years in the countries of origin, especially in the central-american ones, producers have been fighting against a huge phenomenon of great strength: the roja (leaf rust). The roja is a mushroom that was known since the times of the dinosaurs, and so it has always been indestructible: when it appears, it’s very hard to defeat.
The roja (rust) attaches the leaf and causes the plant an early fall of the leaves, therefore blocking its nutrition. This happens because the leaf is the part of the tree that transforms the sunlight into energy, which is crucial for the nutrition of the plant (photosynthesis). The reaction of a coffee tree after being hit by this disease is, in the best cases, the stop of production; in the worst cases, the death of the plant. I’ll never forget the words of a producer whose plants had been hit by this phenomenon who, with tears on his eyes, told me that the roja is impossible to eliminate and that the only solution is to find a way to live with it. Lately, the great companies of the coffee industry studied and found a way to help the countries of origin to defeat this phenomenon, identifying it as the great solution to the fight against this mushroom: but is it the right help? Nobody can tell!
The solution that the big industry is experimenting consists of selling hybrid plants which have been created in laboratories and that are resistant to the roja; these “new varieties” on one side provide the farmer with huge productions which are resistant to the mushrooms, but on the other side they affect all kinds of diversities, by generating coffees that are all identical, and therefore they transform coffee into a standardized product, as it already happened to many other primary foods.
In my travels to the countries of origin I found cooperatives that adjusted to this situation thanks to the help of big companies, by studying and growing these hybrids: I’ve seen huge fields of varieties such as OBATA, ICATU, LEMPIRA e PARINEMA.
Although this solution can be useful, because the plants generated with these studies are surely more resistant to the roja and, for this reason, even more productive, I can’t hide my concern, because I believe that a large scale growing of these varieties will lead to a complete extinction of top level varieties that have always been identifying the taste of a whole country.
As I already said, nobody can judge wether this is a good solution or not; but what I do believe that can be useful for us simple coffee lovers (but it cold also be useful for the big industry), even before proceeding with invasive methods, is to touch with your own hands and experience the reality of coffee producers.
Luckily, the “great solution” hasn’t been adopted by all producing companies hit by the mushroom: some producer fight day by day to avoid losing the uniqueness of their coffee, by finding “home-made” methods to face the roja, and it is with these producers that I want to work and it is to them that I want to give my greatest support.
As you know, I’ve been trying for years to have more and more direct relationships with producers who are committed to quality, and I do believe that this approach is important, because it allows me to get to know personally the people who provide coffee to me, to shake their hands and to know the place where they live, to discover their agricultural techniques. All of this gives me a better guarantee of a top quality production that will generate, without doubts, a quality trade among all parts which get involved in the same mission: serving exclusive and unique coffees, ignoring everything that the global trade tends to impose. Maybe this is the only way to defeat every obstacle that (not only) mother nature places on our way!
Francesco Sanapo
Source: http://www.francescosanapo.com/post/C/2340785ATE8867007048/
