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( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( OFF the WIRE ) ) )) ))) ) C I AT / I N T E R N AT I O N A L C E N T E R F O R T R O P I C A L A G R I C U LT U R E NEWS BR IE FS WEAK TREES AND BAD WEATHER: HOW ���ROYA��� RAVAGED CENTRAL AMERICA Roya dries out the leaves and causes them to fall off, impairing the trees��� ability to photosynthesize and leading to fewer coffee berries being produced. Toward the end of January of this year, Robin Seitz spent a week Roya isn���t a new problem���it destroyed more than 90 percent in El Salvador visiting coffee farms that partner with PT���s Coffee, of the coffee crops in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) in the midthe Kansas-based roaster he works for. Traversing from Usulut��n to-late 19th century before arriving in the Western Hemisphere in the southeast to Santa Ana and Chalatenango in the northwest, in Brazil in the 1970s. However, the current situation in Central Seitz saw a broad representation of the country���s coffee produc- America is remarkably catastrophic. Rodolfo Ruffatti, who mantion���and a disturbing recurrence. ���You see entire sections of ages Finca El Salvador in El Salvador���s Cordillera de Apaneca farms that just look like skeletal armies on the side of the hill,��� he mountain range, says weather conditions are responsible for the says. ���There���s no foliage left, just these twigs and spread. Because roya needs water for spore gersticks that used to be lush coffee trees. It���s pretty mination, it typically spreads during the rainy ROYA AT SCAA devastating and awful to see.��� season and then stops during the dry harvest The coffee-rust crisis is sure to What Seitz witnessed were the effects of cofseason. But this year, rains kept falling. ���During be a much-buzzed-about topic fee rust disease���known in Spanish as roya��� the 2011-2012 harvest, we had the highest level at this month��s SCAA Event in Boston, April 10-14. One place which is currently ravaging not just El Salvador of rains during the ���dry season��� in the past 42 to get in on the discussion will but much of Central America. In January, news years,��� says Ruffatti. ���Getting hit with storms be at a panel titled ��Leaf Rust: site Bloomberg reported Costa Rica���s current well into the dry season extended roya���s growth Testing Our Resiliency as an Industry.�� The event takes crop would be down 30 to 40 percent and period. And sporadic rains this current harvest place at 10:30 a.m. April 12 in Honduras��� output would be down 767,000 bags, season have allowed roya to keep spreading.��� Room 252A. both due to roya. The next month, Guatemala���s What���s more, roya is now climbing to higher president declared a national emergency conelevations than ever before (it has traditionally cerning the spread of roya, stating it could affect as much as 70 fed on trees in lower-lying areas). ���We���re seeing strictly high-grown percent of the country���s crop. coffee plantations full of roya���something not seen before,��� says While the crisis unfolds and coffee pros wrap their heads Ruffatti. ���We believe this could be a stronger strain of roya, but we around how it will affect the future of the industry, here are some don���t have the research to confirm this. What we have noticed is answers to roya-related questions. that due to deforestation and climate change, it is getting hotter at higher elevations, with a huge variance between low and high WHAT IS IT AND WHY IS IT OUT OF CONTROL? Known by temperatures. This for sure has to affect the plants��� health.��� the scientific name Hemileia vastatrix, roya is a parasitic fungus that attacks the surface of a coffee plant���s leaves and is seen in HOW DO VARIETIES FACTOR IN? Among the primary targets yellow and orange spots. ���They look like polka dots,��� Seitz says. of roya are traditional plant varieties such as Bourbon, which NEWS AND NOTES FROM THE COFFEE AND TEA WORLD: A LITTLE HELP: After 11 days of protests, thousands of Colombian coffee farmers won a deal for higher government subsidies (which were raised from $33 to $81 for each 275-pound load). Producers argued that a low C-market price coupled with Colombia���s stronger currency had left coffee profit margins dwindling. | continued on page 20 18 Fresh Cup Magazine freshcup.com