Every couple of months, I see (or get sent) a news article about some companies that are developing a form of “beanless” coffee. In fact, for whatever reason, Slate Magazine continues to consistently boost an article about “The Coffee Apocalypse” on its Facebook feed. Each time I see it, there’s a new set of reader comments lamenting about having to drink coffee made with chickpeas.
“Ersatz coffee” is not new. For example, even though “chicory coffee” is a well-known New Orleans phenomenon, its global consumption has been around and known for centuries. Americans of a certain age may remember Postum as a coffee substitute widely consumed (or consumed by their parents) during WWII. And we’ve seen other coffee augmentations, such as mushroom coffee, become trendy in the past couple of years, as food industries target health, wellness, and lifestyle-oriented consumers.
However, what has changed is the context by which these types of coffees concocted of chickpea/date seeds/sunflower/pea proteins/barley/dried currants are discussed: climate change. Climate change is obviously one of the largest, manmade existential crises of our time and only recently has there been a modicum of urgency to address both the symptoms and root causes at a global, structural level. For example, the “alternative protein industry” has taken cues from the EV industry, attempting to give consumers more “meatless meat” choices through innovations such as Impossible Whoppers and Beyond Sausage meatless brats. These products help reduce reliance on cattle farming as a driver of greenhouse gas emissions (particularly methane emissions) while minimizing consumer product dissatisfaction. However, the effect of consumer responsibilization under a neoliberal paradigm is insufficient compared with structural change; on the consumer demand-side, “every bit counts” choice in a heterogeneous market is less impactful in aggregate (especially in the short-run) than is producer supply-side policy constraint. And yet, constraining commodity producers in subsistence markets is almost never justly done– especially when net consumption is geographically distant from net production. (Why and how this happens is the focus of my current research.)
Agriculture is resource-intensive; coffee requires land availability, fertilizer, pest control, water for growth and water for some processing methods, and the right climate conditions. Wastewater from coffee production is toxically acidic. Drought conditions can occur. Fungus such as roja (coffee rust) can spread across a farm and destroy farms’ entire yields. Many of the farmers whose coffee makes it to international consumption do so at subsistence-level incomes, relative to the value of their product. As I’ve alluded in other posts, the average annual income of a Colombian coffee farmer is about $800 USD/year (which is probably about $3,000 USD in local purchasing power terms).
The result is that coffee growing is a costly proposition for farmers– one that is not necessarily sustainable in economic terms, if not sustainability terms. The issues of drought and disease have always created risks for coffee farmers, yet the prevalence and intensity of their occurrences has increased with climate change. Some farmers shift to polycultural growing techniques, intercropping plantains and beans on their farms to earn additional income off the land; some farmers shift their fertilizing/pesticide practices to be more efficient and effective in the face of rust, without adding more chemicals to groundwater; some build raised drying beds so they can avoid wastewater runoff; some purchase certifications; and some purchase seeds to attempt growing the latest rust-resistant and/or drought-resistant species or varieties. The challenges to how farmers run their businesses in response to climate change’s symptoms emanate from net-consumption dominant countries promising to make their coffees more appealing to the “ethical consumer.” All of these “solutions” require that farmers make risky investments to maintain coffee production to meet the demands of “responsibilized consumers” who are asked to make “good” choices in an unconstrained market.
The innovation and promotion of these “beanless coffees” as a “sustainable” alternative to coffee is therefore a bit bewildering. Rather than fixing both the root causes of climate change and economic value inequity, it treats its symptoms instead. But coffee production contrasts with other sectors such as cattle farming. First, cattle farming yields greenhouse gasses approximating 21kg/CO2e per kg of beef, whereas coffee farming yields greenhouse gasses approximating 2kg/CO2e per kg of green coffee (increasing to almost 15kg/CO2e, roasted). In other words, the impact of coffee farming on global warming is minimal in comparison with other agriculture production– and the larger proportion of coffee’s impact on global warming is through shipping and roasting.
Second, increases in costs of coffee production have largely risen because of climate change. More humidity from ocean currents has increased the prevalance of rust on farms. At the same time, drought conditions have challenged farmers’ ability to grow coffee. In our work, an exporter in Colombia explained how coffee farmers in Cundinamarca department (the department encompassing Bogotá) were unable to grow coffee at lower altitudes because of drought, yet there was limited availability of land at higher altitudes to grow coffee and land at higher altitudes may be owned by another entity. As a result of the difficulties with growing coffee, some farmers are adapting by abandoning coffee and turning to growing flowers instead— the type of flowers you might find at your grocery store’s florist case. Fewer production inputs and labor are required for processing, reducing cost of production, and yield turnovers are much more frequent per year, making for much more reliable income.
You know, this is agriculture. [Producers] need cash flow. So they add fertilizers and they also diversify their crops, which is something that we really value. They grow banana, they grow guama, they grow plantain, you know, they try to diversify, but their main daily concern is cash flow […]
This is important that you understand especially of what’s going on in Cundinamarca: Every single coffee grower– let’s say 80%– is switching from coffee to foliage, which is the flower industry. You see bouquets? [Coffee farmers] produce the foliage because they will receive product every three months. So they just struggle to use fertilizers, they receive crop, the logistics are super cheap for the industry because the flower industry is close to Bogotá. So it’s very, very close. It’s around business. So people are forgetting about coffee in the region of Cundinamarca.
The cacao industry is facing similar issues: high costs of production, little availability for production, increased and unconstrained global demand for chocolate, commodity market pricing, responsibilization of consumers… and affected by the same effects of climate change. And just like with coffee, companies innovating “chocolateless chocolate” have popped up as a market “solution” to the effects of climate change on cacao production. It’s the craft commodity version of Soylent.
In a nutshell, ersatz coffee as a function of taste is one thing (frankly, I fail to see the functional difference between “beanless coffee” and a “coffee-flavored 5 Hour Energy”); as a function of climate justice however, it solves a “Global North” problem with “Global North” hubris, while producers struggle to adapt by revising and adapting their business model away from coffee or to keep family farms afloat selling their own land to larger firms so they can have the privilege of working for those firms.
The commodification process that separates coffee consumption from production across time and space allows consumers to think of coffee as a choice, but for many producers and farmers, it is not. Presenting consumers with ersatz coffee as yet another sustainable choice may seem like just that, yet for farmers, it eliminates choice. The coffee industry would be better off increasing farmers’ cash flow well above the cost of production, while government would better off aggressively addressing causes, not just symptoms, of climate injustice.
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