The breakfast of many Brazilians and most Europeans, with the traditional coffee and orange juice, could become a luxury meal. The prices of two of Brazil’s main exports, almost national symbols, coffee and oranges, have soared in recent months due to weather events such as frosts or prolonged droughts that affected crops.
In Brazil, the price of coffee has increased by almost 60% in the last 12 months, according to the IPCA (National Broad Consumer Price Index). In France, the increase so far has been more timid, approximately 8%, but for a people not used to inflation like the French, the value weighs heavily on the pocket.
But, more than prices, the fear in Europe is that the changes in Brazil’s climate are perennial and put the supply of coffee and orange juice in the world at risk. To what extent could global warming be behind these price increases?
For the meteorologist and researcher at the Center for meteorological research applied to agriculture, Cepagri, from Unicamp, Ana Ávila, the relationship between climate change and crop problems exists, although it is a challenge to understand.
“We have this challenge of understanding if this is part of a climate change or if it is part of a variability” of the climate, explains the researcher. “But generally speaking, yes, climate change tends to have an impact on coffee production and orange production.”
The year 2021 was doubly impacted by two climatic events, the cold and the prolonged drought, which led to a “confusion” in the cultures, as Ávila explains. “Climate change tends to have this impact precisely because of this mess in what we know as the normal climate to produce the way we have been producing.”
The mess could lead to a change not only in the way of producing, but in the geography of cultures. A survey carried out by Cepagri, in 2008, cross-referenced information from the agrarian zoning in Brazil and climate change scenarios, established by researchers from the UN climate specialist group, the IPCC.
Agrarian zoning is a mapping that takes into account the climatic characteristics of a region and characteristics of each culture, defining where each one will be established.
“The result of this research was that the tendency is for coffee production to migrate further to the south, where they currently do not plant coffee, for example”, he says.
The orange climate challenge
In the case of oranges, the climate has really been one of the main challenges for the culture in recent years, as stated by specialist Fernanda Geraldini Gomes, a researcher in the area of fruits at the Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics at the Escola Superior de Agricultura (Cepea- Esalq), in Piracicaba.
“The weather is really the main factor. It’s been practically three years of below-average production and basically it’s because of the weather. the case of the past harvest. The harvest that is ending now”, explains the researcher.
One of the solutions used by farmers to face the long droughts is irrigation.
“Most of the orchards are not irrigated. Today, we have between 30 and 35% of the orange area with irrigation. So people are trying to seek more this type of technology to avoid the climatic risks that are being more frequent”, it says.
But technology makes production more expensive and has limits, as Ana Ávila warns.
“We don’t know to what extent we will have this water available and we have priority for the use of this water. There is a lot of water there in the Amazon, but there, fortunately, there is a whole conservation area, little population and we don’t even want to to be exploited in terms of agricultural production”, evaluates the meteorologist.
Sustainability
The high price of coffee does not necessarily mean profitability for Brazilian producers, as explained by the researcher in the field of coffee at Cepea, Renato Ribeiro. The 2021 frost hit many regions in southern Minas Gerais, where small producers had large production losses.
“In a general context, the situation for the coffee grower, especially in regions that concentrate small producers, is a little complicated. In addition, the price of inputs has also increased a lot. Thinking in terms of resumption of cultivation, some regions will have a lot of difficulty” , analyzes Ribeiro.
For Ribeiro, the current concern is with the sustainability of the coffee growing model in Brazil. If in the past coffee plantations were deeply related to large farms, today 95% of Brazilian coffee is grown by small and medium producers.
He recalls that the commodity is no longer one of the most exported grains by Brazil. But although they do not profoundly affect the national economy, problems in coffee production, in addition to the increase in the cost of inputs, could have a major impact on the regions where it is produced.
The important thing is the sustainability of the activity, because this producer lives on the property, where he and probably his two or three children work. They live in a reasonably good condition. So, thinking about this issue of sustainable activity, family sustainability, coffee in these regions is very important”, he explains.
“This I see as the great social contribution of coffee compared to other cultures. You support an entire region by keeping people in the field working for themselves, without having to be employed”, he concludes.
Solutions
But there are solutions for not missing coffee and orange juice on the breakfast table. For meteorologist Ana Ávila, the solution lies in the genetic improvement of grains and fruits. Plants native to the cerrado, for example, could be used in the genetic improvement of crops.
“They are adapted plants, they are native plants, they are cerrado plants that can be used”, he says. “Because one of the issues, among others, is genetic improvement, to have grains that are more resistant to drought, to high temperatures, to continue this production”, he explains.
Another important point, according to Ávila, is a better use of the areas that are currently used for cultivation, avoiding the expansion of agriculture to protected regions. Many of the cultivated areas today are underutilized, according to the expert.
“If you improve the quality of the soil, invest in the quality of no-till farming, in agricultural techniques, you can produce more in these areas and produce better without having to move to these protected areas”, he concludes.
