Climate Change Is Hurting Coffee Industry

Global warming already took its toll on the Northeast's peach supply (we're going through withdrawal), and a new report by The Climate Institute, based in Sydney, Australia, says that coffee could be next. Half of the land that can currently grow coffee will no longer "be suitable for production," the Guardian reports.

For Nicaragua, that prediction could become a reality as soon as 2050. And in Tanzania, where coffee production has already decreased by 50 percent since the 1960s, coffee growing may become scarce by 2060. Wild coffee, which is key to genetic diversity and ultimately to keeping the coffee industry going, could be wiped out entirely by 2080.

These shifts impact 120 million people who work in the coffee industry, growing, harvesting, packaging beans and shipping them to their final destinations. Coffee growers could move their efforts to more opportune locations in response but not without significant funds, as well as time, since coffee plants take, on average, three to four years to produce fruit.

While 2050 may sound like a long way away, depending on how much caffeine you require in the morning, you may want to start stocking up now.