Description
Prompt
What is the most important threat to coffee production in your assigned country and the most promising solution to address this threat or reduce its impact? Your paper must do the following:
Discuss only one threat. Note that you cannot choose “climate change” as your threat; you must be more specific (e.g. rising temperatures, unpredictable weather, etc.)
Discuss only one solution to address the threat or reduce its impact;
Have a clear thesis and blueprint of reasons for both your chosen threat and solution;
Engage with concepts from at least two course modules;
Use at least one current, coffee-related policy, project or initiative happening in your assigned country to discuss your one solution;
Be at least 1500 words (roughly six double-spaced pages).
The purpose of the research paper is to allow you to organize and write a multi-part essay, use what you’ve learned about your assigned country to make a persuasive argument, and demonstrate your knowledge of the writing skills we have introduced during the class.
Read this full assignment to make sure you understand the additional requirements for your paper.
Audience
Each country has a Ministry of Agriculture–a department in charge of agricultural policies and regulations. For this assignment, imagine that you are working as a research consultant in your assigned country and that the Ministry is re-evaluating their policies and funding for the coffee sector. They have requested an assessment of the single greatest threat to coffee within the country as well as a way to address this threat. The officials who will read this report know that coffee is an important crop for their country but are not coffee experts. It is not safe to assume they know details about the cultivation, economics, or social dynamics of growing coffee.
(Note: Your audience does not know anything about this course. If you discuss resources from this course, you must introduce them without mentioning this course.)
Recommended Structure
Your report should have two main sections: part one should focus on ONE threat and part two on ONE solution. Demonstrating how your solution addresses the main points you make about the threat will ensure a strong, cohesive argument.
A recommended structure is:
Briefly provide relevant information on coffee production in your assigned country before concluding your introductory paragraph with your thesis statement (see next section).
Decide on the 2 or 3 points the Ministry absolutely needs to know about the threat. Write 1-2 body paragraphs on each of these points. Support your points with evidence. This should include definitions of key terms, paraphrasing of key sources, and an explanation of how these sources support your argument. Quotations are acceptable as evidence but only if you cannot express the same information in your own words.
Decide on 2 or 3 points the Ministry should know about the solution before taking action. Write 1-2 body paragraphs on each of these points.
Your discussion of the solution should include one specific, coffee-related project, policy, or initiative as evidence. You can discuss the project throughout the second half of your essay to explain your main points, or you can describe and analyze the project in a separate paragraph in part two of your essay.
Summarize your paper with a conclusion that includes a restatement of your thesis.
You used this same structure to create an outline on the Research Paper Proposal. Make sure you apply the feedback you received on the Proposal assignment. You can also use the Outline Worksheet Tool available on the course website.
Details about each component of your paper are below:
Thesis:
You should update your draft thesis statement based on TA feedback and your continued research. Since there are two major sections, you should have a compound thesis that is 2-4 sentences in length. Your thesis must answer both of the following questions:
1) What is the most important threat to coffee production in your assigned country?
2) What is the most promising coffee-related solution that can address or reduce the impact of this threat?
Support your answer to each question with 2 to 3 points. This means your thesis will include two blueprints of reasons, one for the threat portion of your essay and one for your discussion of a solution. If you would like more guidance in developing a strong thesis statement, visit office hours with one of the instructors. Some examples of sample thesis statements can be found in this document.
Part 1: Threat to production
In this section of your paper, you will describe the most important threat to coffee production in your assigned country.
Examples of threats include:
An increase in the occurrence of pests and diseases;
A current “C” price that does not cover the cost of production;
Inadequate government funding agricultural extension programs;
The burden that women face in your country’s coffee supply chain; or
Rising temperatures that are making a particular region less suitable for coffee production.
Please note, you cannot say climate change is the biggest threat to coffee in your country. This is too broad. If you choose a climate-related threat, you MUST identify a specific impact of climate change (i.e. changing temperatures, rainfall patterns, etc.) on coffee production systems.
You will use your understanding of your assigned country to present the 2 to 3 most important points to understand about this threat. These points can explain how the threat became so significant, its impact on the country, or evidence for why it is more important than other threats to coffee production.
Part 2: Assessment of Solutions
The second part of your paper should name and describe one existing solution that can address your chosen threat or reduce its impact. This solution should relate to the topics we have studied in the course: coffee ecology and genetics, economics and marketing, sustainability, international development, coffee research and extension, etc.
To ensure that your solution is grounded in the reality of coffee communities, you must include an existing, coffee-related project, policy, or initiative in the discussion of your solution. This project can be a positive example of your solution in action, or it can be a negative example that your solution could help fix . This project, policy, or initiative can come from a farmer cooperative, research institution, government agency, private company, or non-profit organization. It should take place on coffee farms or directly benefit coffee farmers. Examples of projects, policies, or initiatives include the following:
A development agency providing microloans to farmers;
A private company donating shade trees to mitigate the effects of climate change;
The government investing in a digital extension program for farmers; or
New government regulations that monitor water use and fertilizer leaching.
If you choose a project not currently taking place in your assigned country, you must provide evidence for how it would work in your assigned country based on your country’s ecology, history, economy, and culture.
Unformatted Attachment Preview
Effects of Rising Temperature and Leaf Rust Disease and Its Effects on Coffee Production
Effects of Rising Temperature and Leaf Rust Disease and Its Effects on Coffee Production
The most critical threat to coffee production in Indonesia is coffee leaf rust disease,
which affects both the quantity and quality of coffee beans, leading to decreased yields and
compromised flavor profiles. However, the most promising solution to this threat is developing
and promoting resistant coffee varieties. This solution addresses the threat by breeding coffee
plants with genetic resistance to the fungus, reducing susceptibility to infection and mitigating
the impact on yields and flavor profiles. Initiatives such as the “Coffee Farm Rehabilitation
Program” led by the Ministry of Agriculture exemplify the implementation of this solution,
distributing disease-resistant coffee varieties to farmers and providing training on proper
cultivation techniques to safeguard the Indonesian coffee industry against the detrimental effects
of coffee leaf rust.
The rising temperatures in recent years have severely threatened coffee production in
Indonesia. Such a change in weather associated with an increase in temperature has impacted the
country’s historical, physical, and animal-related challenges to continuing to be one of the
world’s biggest coffee producers (Neilson et al., 2015). Increasing temperatures have moved
conventional weather conditions and straightforwardly impacted the physiological cycles of
espresso plants, prompting diminished yields and compromised bean quality, expanded
defenselessness to bugs, and an episode of illnesses.
Warming in Indonesia adversely affected coffee yield—especially Arabica coffee, which
depends on relatively low temperatures. Elevated temperatures speed up ripening, leading to
early cherry drop and reducing size. Similarly, higher temperatures on the flowering levels
influence poor pollination and another poorer fruit set due to elevated temperatures, once again
reducing the yields. This reduction in yield has implications not only on the income of coffee
farmers but also impacts Indonesia’s overall coffee production output, as changes shall be
observed, which may lead to market instability and eventual loss in revenues due to decreased
exports. For instance, the quality of Indonesia coffee beans is lowered due to higher
temperatures. The synthesizing of the compounds responsible for the taste in the bean may be
disrupted at such high temperatures, thus reducing the coffee’s complexity and shallow taste
quality. Lower quality undermines Indonesia’s specialty coffee brands and could decrease
consumer demand, affecting the entire coffee industry in Indonesia.
Increased temperatures alter the occurrence and intensity of pests and diseases in
Indonesian coffee plantations. Under higher temperatures, more pests like the coffee berry borer
survive, and the impacts are even more significant. More significantly, under higher
temperatures, more humidity causes the disease-causing agents, such as coffee leaf rust, to
multiply faster, again more common in areas where the temperature increases due to climate
change (Neilson, et al. 2015). The problems of these pest and disease pressures add an extra
burden to the already expensive management strategies that the coffee farmers have to invest in,
which can cause significant crop losses.
Though there is difficulty in assessing shifts of geographical suitability, some of the areas
in Indonesia are becoming less suitable for coffee because of high temperatures. As temperatures
continue to increase, so do the coffee-growing regions at higher elevations that were once more
suited to its production. Further increases would cause those areas to be too warm for coffee
cultivation, and besides that, adaptation in such an area might be too costly or even impossible,
and some land use will move to alternative crops (Cairo & Hernandez, 2023). Such disturbances
compromise not only the economic activities of the coffee producers but also require serious
adjustment for the entirety of Indonesia’s coffee production system as an overall production
industry; it might mean a general diminution in production activity or even changes in the tasting
qualities of its product under warmer conditions.
One of the solutions or alternatives for protection from rising temperatures is
systematized initiation into agroforestry systems that could be made richer or made better and
more popular by further introducing systems. Agroforestry would be a best-fit solution to prove
effective against rising temperatures because it incorporates trees and shrubs within coffee plants
as multiple canopies, forming a replica of the natural ecosystems of the forest (D’haeze, ETL,
2003). This model of cultivation and production has been rigorously tested at various times,
offering tremendous benefits in terms of higher adaptability to climate change, better soil health,
higher biodiversity, and multiple incomes that farmers generate.
Agroforestry systems offer a comprehensive solution in which the raised temperatures
would be cushioned regarding their impacts on coffee production. The agroforestry systems
create buffer microclimates against extreme temperatures where trees for shade are put beside
the coffee plants (International Coffee Organization, 2020). The trees help to reduce excess
warmth, most of the time controlling temperatures to the extent that becomes suitable and ideal
for good development and growth of coffee. They also hold moisture in the ground to buffer
against drought effects and lessen the need for irrigation.
Besides, agroforestry offers support and conservation of biodiversity owing to the variety
of plant and animal species accommodated. These confer ecosystem resilience and have a more
significant potential to adjust to changing scenarios than monoculture. The diversity in plants in
an agroforestry system has opened up multiple farm produce like fruits, nuts, and timber besides
coffee, all of which would otherwise be able to open up alternative incomes for the farmers. It
has been an attempt to work with coffee farmers interested in adopting agroforestry practices
within their existing coffee plantation systems.
This project on Coffee Agroforestry sets in on a critical note of tree species selection, the
shade of which should complement coffee production and meanwhile serve nitrogen fixation,
soil erosion mitigation, and fodder for livestock. The agroecosystems obtained by the
combination of local tree species from the coffee plantations result in sustainable types that hold
extra resilience against rising temperatures and other forms of setbacks coming out of changing
climatic conditions (Guerra-Guimarães,2023). For example, higher temperatures threaten coffee
production in Indonesia. One possible action would be for the government to invest in a digital
extension service for these farmers. This could be in technology that would enable the timely
provision of relevant information and resources, which aid the farmer constantly in his pursuit to
increase their adaptive capacity to handle the challenges of changing climatic conditions and
increase productivity levels sustainably.
One example was “CoffeeConnect,” created by the International Coffee Organization
(ICO) with local partners such as EPAMIG, Sebrae National, Indonesian Confederation of
Agriculture, etc. CoffeeConnect is an initiative for the interactive and professionalized
production of coffee that comprises access to a basket of digitalized extension types of services.
With an investment in a digital extension program for coffee farmers, the government would
reduce, to a great extent, the risks that coffee production in Indonesia faces from such erratic
weather with rising temperatures (International Coffee Organization, 2020). Digital technologies
enhance productivity and support adaptation to climate variability’s changing conditions while
increasing resilience against several environmental hazards because they can quickly transfer
information and support the same.
Policies play a crucial role in managing the global issues affecting control of global
warming and its effect on any sub-region, particularly the Indonesian coffee industry.
Policymakers are thus obligated to prevent the impacts of climate change on agriculture,
including coffee production, and their root causes. Thus, if countries act, governments can
reduce the leading cause of global warming, carbon emissions. That includes setting strict goals
for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport, industry, and agriculture(Bailey,2017).
This would ameliorate these adverse effects of climate change on coffee-growing areas of
countries by adapting to renewable sources of energy, controlling emissions at source from
companies, and fostering energy efficiency. Even legislative frameworks could empower and
create conditions encouraging coffee growers to embrace sustainable agricultural practices. That
would mean promoting the growth of agroforestry practices, including shaded coffee.
Governments could also invest in projects with research and development aspects that aim to
find resistant coffee varieties to the recommended future climatic situation (D’haeze et al.,2003).
Policymakers would thus support the improvement and adaptation of these through grants for
scientific advances to not compromise the living conditions of many Indonesian farmers.
Stakeholders should see the possible application of specific adaptation plans for coffeegrowing areas under the requirements provided in the study. This may involve economic
assistance and technical advice to farmers to adopt SMJsonarT growing practices, irrigation and
water management infrastructure improvement, development of early warning systems for
climate-related natural disasters, and international involvement.
The people can cooperate in such a way that some agreement may produce an enabling
environment with minimum deforestation, protection of biodiversity, and promotion of
sustainable land use practices (Bailey,2017). They may also be applicable concerning promoting
new environmentally friendly procedures and laying down practices that contribute to increasing
byproducts of fossil fuel and result in deforestation. In summary, mitigating global warming and
its impacts on the coffee business in Indonesia calls for effective strategy interventions.
In this regard, Policymakers ensure that the long-term solution for sustainable coffee
production amidst climate change takes place. In line with this, they are supposed to establish
policy frameworks that will facilitate a massive reduction in carbon emissions, support
sustainable farming activities, support research and development, among other things, through
funding, and work on adaptation plans in cooperation between different nations.
References
Bailey, P. (2017, January 17). Robust Coffee. Retrieved from [https://news.ucdavis.edu/pressreleases/arabica-coffee- genome-sequenced].
Coffee Rust: symptoms, causes, cycle and solutions. Coffee Research Institute. Retrieved from
[https://bioprotectionportal.com/resources/coffee-rust-symptoms-causes-andsolutions/#:~:text=Use%20of%20biocontrol%20and%20biopesticide%20products&text=
This%20makes%20them%20a%20promising,results%20in%20coffee
%20rust%20management.]
D’haeze, D., Deckers, J., Raes, D., Phong, T. A., & Chanh, N. D. M. (2003). Over-irrigation of
Coffea canephora in the Central Highlands of Vietnam revisited: Simulation of soil
moisture dynamics in Rhodic Ferralsols. Agricultural Water Management, 60(3), 231–
245. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-3774(03)00181-1
Guerra-Guimarães, L., Diniz, I., Azinheira, H. G., Loureiro, A., Pereira, A. P., Tavares, S., … &
Lavado da Silva, M. C. (2023). Coffee Leaf Rust Resistance: An Overview. In Coffee
Leaf Rust Resistance: An Overview. Springer International Publishing.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95410-5_1
International Coffee Organization. (2020). Coffee Development Report 2020. International
Coffee Organization. Retrieved from [https://ico.org/documents/cy2020-21/ed-2357ecdr-2020.pdf]
Main Challenges: https://video.ucdavis.edu/media/0_sfbtyzrw
Mazzafera, P., Andrade, S. A., Krishnan, S., Martinez, H. P., & Gloria, M. B. (2022). Coffee:
From the Field to the Cup. Frontiers Media SA.
Neilson, J., Labaste, P. and Jaffee, S.. (2015). Towards a more competitive and dynamic value
chain for Indonesian coffee-Working Paper #7. Prepared for the World Bank,
Washington DC.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301226209_Towards_a_more_competitive_and
_dynamic_value_chain_for_Indonesian_coffee_World_Bank_Washi ngton_DC
Tehulie, N. S., & Nigatie, T. Z. (2023). Response of intercropping coffee (Coffea arabica L.)
with banana (Musa spp.) on yield, yield components, and quality of coffee. Crop
Science, 63(2), 888-898. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20862
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