Endangered espresso

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Coffee is grown around the world, from Kenya to Costa Rica, and is the world’s second-most valuable commodity after oil — but it may be in danger of extinction.

According to NEW SCIENTIST, the crops on those far-flung plantations nearly all derive from a handful of varieties of the arabica bean. Because there’s so little genetic variablity among the cultivated plants, they’re highly vulnerable to disease; coffee rust, for instance, devastated the Brazilian crop in the 1970s.

Until now, growers have always been able to get new stock from southwest Ethiopia, the genetic home of the arabica, where there are hundreds of varieties and arabica bushes make up much of the forest undergrowth. In the past 30 years, though, those forests have been cleared for lumber, plantations, and settlement by Ethiopians displaced by drought in other parts of the country. As a result, the forests have been drastically reduced, leaving their future, and that of your morning caffeine jolt, in jeopardy.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate