Kate Stanworth
In the lush, volcanic Komothai Highlands of Kenya’s Rift Valley, farmers like Simon Macharia produce coffee in small plantations scattered across hillsides.
Along with other farmers, Mr. Macharia takes bags of his bright red coffee cherries to the local processing plant, where they are weighed and processed.
A machine removes the red hulls, and the pale beans inside are washed and conveyed along concrete channels, ending up on lines of drying platforms that run through the valley.
Here, workers classify the beans into grades, the highest being destined for European coffees.
“We call coffee black gold here,” Mr Macharia, whose farm covers 2.5 hectares (six acres), told the BBC.
He grows Kenya AA coffee beans, loved around the world for their high quality, full body, deep aromas and fruity flavor.
Kate Stanworth
Once harvested, the grains must be extracted from the berries and then dried.
The crop has been a part of these lush highlands since the late 1890s, when British settlers introduced it.
Today, the region is famous for its unique and top-notch coffee.
Growing berries requires a lot of work: picking, pruning, weeding, spraying, fertilizing and transporting the produce.
“Coffee requires full-time focus, especially when it starts to flower,” Mr Macharia said.
“From that moment until the day you go to harvest, for those six months, your full-time job is on the farm.”
A coffee tree represents a huge investment for cash-strapped farmers, as the fruits can take four years to ripen.
The price of a single cup of coffee in a posh European cafe, usually $4 (£3.20), highlights a stark disparity compared to the income of many Kenyan coffee workers, who earn a maximum of $2.30 dollars per day.
Edita Mwangi, who harvests coffee cherries on the red earth hill overlooking the processing factory, confirms this.
“They don’t know the poverty we suffer from. You have to fight day and night to survive,” she said.
With four children in her care, Ms Mwangi works six days a week and earns around $1.40 a day.
She has to walk 5 km to reach the farm where she works.
Kate Stanworth
The daily wage of most Kenyan coffee workers is less than the price of a cup of coffee in Europe
Farmers say the trade system between Kenya and Europe – the world’s largest coffee market – has been unfavorable to them for many years.
But today, a new threat threatens farmers’ ability to earn a living: climate change.
Coffee plants are extremely sensitive to small temperature differences and weather conditions.
They also need specific climatic conditions like humid temperatures and abundant rainfall to thrive.
“Climate change poses a major challenge for our coffee farmers,” says John Murigi, president of the Komothai Coffee Society, which represents 8,000 coffee farmers like Mr Macharia.
Cold temperatures and erratic rainfall are having a devastating impact on delicate coffee plants, Mr Murigi said.
As a result, “coffee production has declined in recent years.”
He added that climate change was intensifying the spread of coffee plant diseases.
Mr Murigi said there had been a significant increase in coffee leaf miners, insects that feed on coffee leaves, and coffee berry disease, a destructive fungal infection that can wipe out more than 80 % of harvests.
To deal with increasing disease outbreaks, farmers are resorting to herbicides and insecticides which can damage soil quality in the long term and also pose health risks.
Farmers use dangerous herbicides like Roundup, which contains glyphosates known to cause cancer – banned in some European countries – to ensure a good harvest.
Kenya’s Pest Control Products Board (PCPB), which is responsible for regulating the use of these products, did not respond to a BBC request for comment.
Kate Stanworth
The harvested beans are washed and dried near the farm
Producing a single cup of coffee can require up to 140 liters of water, including the water needed to grow the plants.
But in Kenya’s fertile Rift Valley, higher temperatures and changing rainfall patterns are leading to fewer water supplies for coffee farmers.
Farmer Joseph Kimani told the BBC that “the river level has dropped a lot” due to erratic weather conditions, such as periods of drought and heavy rain.
He explained that due to lack of rain, farmers are forced to use more water from rivers.
But this increased reliance on river water, driven by lack of rainfall, could further strain already limited water supplies.
Although Mr Murigi acknowledges the increase in water consumption by coffee producers, he denies that this is the reason why the river is drying up.
However, with 23 coffee companies in this region, a significant amount of water is clearly used in the coffee growing process in Kiambu County.
Komothia’s story is not unique. As global temperatures and droughts increase, it will become difficult to grow good coffee anywhere in the world.
Kate Stanworth
Once dried, the grains are usually exported for further processing.
Coffee can only be grown in the “coffee belt”, that is, the tropical regions of the world, generally located between 1,000 and 2,000 m above sea level.
In recent years, climate change has led to a global coffee shortage and an increase in the price of coffee due to drought and poor harvests in several key coffee-producing countries, such as Brazil and Vietnam.
A survey conducted by Fairtrade International, the organization behind Fairtrade labels, found that 93% of Kenyan coffee producers are already experiencing the effects of climate change.
The coffee industry in Kenya is a key source of employment, providing employment to approximately 150,000 people.
To protect the industry, coffee farmers in areas like Komothai are experimenting with climate adaptation techniques, such as planting trees to provide more shade for coffee plants.
Mr Murigi said only by tackling the climate and economic challenges facing Kenyan coffee farmers can they have a sustainable future.
However, coffee farmers like Mr Macharia are pessimistic about the future of the industry.
“Right now, as things stand, I don’t think any parent wants their child to grow coffee here,” he said.
Kate Stanworth
John Murigi worries about the impact of climate change on the farmers he represents
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