Epidemics and the future of coffee production.

In this perspective, we draw on recent scientific research on the coffee leaf rust (CLR) epidemic that severely impacted several countries across Latin America and the Caribbean over the last decade, to explore how the socioeconomic impacts from COVID-19 could lead to the reemergence of another rust epidemic. We describe how past CLR outbreaks have been linked to reduced crop care and investment in coffee farms, as evidenced in the years following the 2008 global financial crisis. We discuss relationships between CLR incidence, farmer-scale agricultural practices, and economic signals transferred through global and local effects. We contextualize how current COVID-19 impacts on labor, unemployment, stay-at-home orders, and international border policies could affect farmer investments in coffee plants and in turn create conditions favorable for future shocks. We conclude by arguing that COVID-19's socioeconomic disruptions are likely to drive the coffee industry into another severe production crisis. While this argument illustrates the vulnerabilities that come from a globalized coffee system, it also highlights the necessity of ensuring the well-being of all. By increasing investments in coffee institutions and paying smallholders more, we can create a fairer and healthier system that is more resilient to future social-ecological shocks.

Inequalities through the lens of science.

Inequalities are ubiquitous in every society on Earth, and the COVID-2019 pandemic has exposed the marginalized communities that suffer the most. A warming planet will only magnify this gap. On the eve of the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, this Voices asks: how can science inform and address inequalities?

Will COVID-19 be one shock too many for smallholder coffee livelihoods?

Coffee supports the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers in more than 52 countries, and generates billions of dollars in revenue. The threats that COVID-19 pose to the global coffee sector is daunting with profound implications for coffee production. The financial impacts will be long-lived and uneven, and smallholders will be among the hardest hit. We argue that the impacts are rooted in the systemic vulnerability of the coffee production system and the unequal ways the sector is organized: Large revenues from the sale of coffee in the Global North are made possible by mostly impoverished smallholders in the Global South. COVID-19 will accentuate the existing vulnerabilities and create new ones, forcing many smallholders into alternative livelihoods. This outcome, however, is not inevitable. COVID-19 presents an opportunity to rebalance the system that currently creates large profits on one end of the supply chain and great vulnerability on the other.