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Frost Bites Brazilian Sugar Crop As Prices Zoom Higher
Frost Bites Brazilian Sugar Crop As Prices Zoom Higher
Brazil’s top producing regions for coffee, oranges, and sugar have been devastated by the worst weather in decades and could leave a lasting impact on prices, according to Bloomberg.
The South American country is one of the world’s leading coffee, sugar, and orange producers experienced a cold snap and drought this growing season in the Center-South area that has significantly damaged crops.
We have focused on coffee and orange markets and how prices are sloping higher after harvest output will likely come in well below average.
Now we’re setting our eyes on the sugar market, where losses in production, exacerbated by an already tight global supply, is fueling higher prices that may be sticking around for the next 18 months.
“We are getting into a boom cycle for the commodity prices,” said Pierre Santoul, chief executive officer in Brazil of France-based Tereos SCA. He said sugar prices are expected to remain elevated through early 2023.
Tereos’s sugar-cane crushing may fall to the lowest levels since the 2009-10 season, to 16.6 million metric tons, or about a 21% reduction from 20.9 million crushed in 2020-21. The nation’s sugar-cane industry group Unica said sugar content in cane fell in the country from a year ago, while cane yield dropped 18%.
Santoul said the extent of the devastation is still unknown. He said mills had increased harvesting to avoid further cane deterioration. He added that if the weather improves in October and rains relieve droughts, the dismal scenario may slightly improve.
Weather disruptions in Brazil mean higher prices for coffee, oranges, and or sugar. Since most of these farm goods are exported, and shipping costs are at record highs, it’s only a matter of time before US wholesalers pass along the costs to consumers.
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Coffee harvests face risk from rising heat
Coffee harvests face risk from rising heat
Many millions of people depend on coffee for a living. Image: By Rodrigo Flores on Unsplash
Global coffee harvests, which provide the drink of choice for millions and the livelihoods of many more, are in peril, not least from rising temperatures.
LONDON, 28 January, 2019 – Coffee drinkers, be warned. A combination of factors – including climate change – is threatening supplies of the beans on which the coffee harvests depend.
Latest analysis by a team of scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London found that more than 60% of over 120 coffee species known across Africa, Asia and Australasia are threatened with extinction.
For many people, coffee is their favourite tipple. In the UK alone, more than 80 million cups of coffee are drunk every day. The experts at Kew say a total of 100 million people around the world depend on coffee for their livelihoods.
Climate change, together with fungal diseases and the impact of land clearances and deforestation, are all having negative impacts on coffee plants.
Coffee plants are fragile and often acutely sensitive to temperature changes, particularly those belonging to the Arabica species (Coffea arabica), the source of the world’s most popular coffee variety.
“Climate change will have a damaging impact on commercial coffee production worldwide”
The Coffee Research Institute says Arabica plants need year-round temperatures of between 15°C and 24°C in order to maintain high production levels and good quality.
Wild coffee plants play an essential role in building up more robust plants for cultivation; cross-bred with plantation plants, they provide the genetic resources to help withstand pests and diseases. They also encourage resilience to changes in climate and improve the flavour and quality of the coffee beans.
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Coffee Tree Extinction And The Caffeine Blues
Coffee Tree Extinction And The Caffeine Blues
Is man’s second-best friend at risk of extinction?
What lowers your risk of cardiovascular disease, boosts your brain cells and adds years to your life? Health experts will tell you that would be coffee. A morning cup of Joe not only gives many of us the jolt we need to face the day ahead but it’s just plain damn good for you. Perhaps this is why scientists are issuing a dreaded warning: coffee tree extinction is on the horizon.
For the last 20 years, scientists have been studying the coffee bean which really does grow on trees. But research now shows that 60% of the coffee trees around the world are rapidly leaving the planet due to disease, deforestation – and dare we say, climate change.
Even if you throw out that last one – the climate change business – something is definitely going on with coffee trees that is rather distressing. While this news may come as a tragedy to those of us who live quite happily with our caffeine addiction, there are other worrisome aspects to this news.
Coffee Is Big Business
Widely consumed, coffee is a multibillion-dollar business. As of 2015, coffee represented a $225.2B industry in the United States. American consumers spent $74.2B on coffee in that calendar year which supported 1,694,710 coffee-related jobs. The National Coffee Association also estimates that the government rakes in $28B in taxes on coffee products.
Your cup of java is primarily made up of two types of coffee trees: Arabica (Coffea arabica) which represents 60% of the crop consumed. The other 40% is composed of Robusta (Coffea canephora). There are other smaller types of coffee species – a total of 124 to be exact – but these two represent the mother-lode of coffee that is farmed, traded and shipped to consumers worldwide.
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Tips For The Caffeinated: Coffee After The SHTF
Tips For The Caffeinated: Coffee After The SHTF
If you are anything like me, there’s nothing like that first sip of piping hot coffee in the crisp, cool, and silent morning mountain air, then you’ll understand the importance of making sure you’ve got your ‘cup of joe’ covered, even if the SHTF. Here are some tips and tricks to prepare for the worst, while still making sure you continue to enjoy the simple things in life – like your morning coffee.
Did you know that coffee restores mental alertness just seconds after you drink it? Although we’re primarily concerned here with it as a drink, caffeine, as well as ground coffee, is available in other forms, such as tablets and as an ingredient in a mixture. It takes a lot to overdose, and the lethal dose for an adult is 150 to 200 mg of caffeine per kg of body weight. To place this into perspective, if you weighed about 120 lbs., you would have to drink about 75 cups of coffee before you checked into the big Starbuck’s in the sky.
Coffee beans will last up to three years, but without electricity, or your handy Keurig, how will you prepare it? Well, plan for coffee after the apocalypse today so that should the worst-case scenario indeed come to pass (or even a far-from-worst-case-but-totally-normal hurricane, snowstorm, or blackout) you’ll be able to move into an electricity-free world with ease; at least when it comes to your coffee. There are many “off the grid” coffee makers, and those who often camp know a percolator can be invaluable. A percolator allows coffee to be made right over the campfire. The Yosemite percolator is an excellent choice, and it’s a bit heftier than the granite-colored ones we tend to think of from years past. Steer clear of vintage glass percolators simply because they just aren’t as practical and all that glass can be a tad nerve-wracking to deal with.
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6 Useful Ends for Spent Tea and Coffee
6 Useful Ends for Spent Tea and Coffee
Coffee is just divine. I’ve woken up other ways and have even taken to drinking a glass of water first thing every morning, before coffee happens, but nothing makes the world feel so right as the sun coming up over a steaming mug, even in—especially in—the muggy climates of Central America, where I spend most of my time.
My wife, on the other hand, comes from proper British roots and often fancies a cup of tea as opposed to the more jolting Guatemalan roast. So, for her, it’s tea that makes the day, and in nearly a decade of living abroad, it’s one of only two things—the other being Marmite—that she requests when family visits from the Isles.
Without a doubt, this love of tea and coffee is nothing exclusive to us, and so it feels fairly safe to assume there are a lot of old tea bags and spent coffee grounds making the rounds out there. Thus, many of us permie-, enviro- types could be making good use of our beverage leftovers, cycling our garbage into a advantageous resource
Here are some of the things we do, and some of the things in store for the future.
1. COMPOST:
The obvious destination for anything organic is the compost bin. Coffee is a powerful nitrogen element to compost heaps, and despite popular belief, it isn’t nearly as acidic as people think. The acid found in roasted coffee is water-soluble so that, by the time the coffee has been brewed, the grounds have a nearly neutral pH-balance. Coffee is also thought to attract worms. Tea is respected for its antifungal qualities, as well as pest repelling, and more importantly, it attracts good bacteria and speeds up the decomposition process. In fact, the old bags can be brewed together in a pitcher one last time to be poured onto the heap.
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