Coffee bushes become more susceptible to diseases in a damper and warmer climate than they are used to. A considerable proportion of coffee is produced by smallholders with little opportunity to modernise their operations or move their plantations to more favourable areas. Climate change is already affecting the price and availability of green coffee to some extent.

To help small coffee growers to adjust, six European coffee enterprises and the German development cooperation organisation GIZ started a joint climate project in the beginning of 2011 entitled Coffee & Climate. From Finland, Paulig is a participant.

In the Coffee & Climate project, practical tools are developed for growers by combining research data on climate change with proven good cultivation practices. Economic support systems are also developed. The pilot countries in the climate project are Guatemala, Brazil, Tanzania and Vietnam, where the work has been started by charting the initial situation. In Brazil, progress was made to the field work stage at the end of 2011 and in Tanzania, practical work got under way in February 2012. The experience gained from them will be used when the project is extended to other coffee-producing countries. Check out the project www.coffeeandclimate.org.