Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world. People consume about 10 million tones of coffee each year, and the weight roughly equals that of water filled in 4,000 Olympic swimming pools. However, did you know that coffee is gradually disappearing?

It is because of coffee production reduction by climate change, such as drought, abnormal temperatures, and increased precipitation. Indonesia, the fourth largest coffee producer in the world, is also experiencing a decline in coffee production due to climate change. According to the Indonesian Agricultural Journal, The increasing extreme climate events like drought due to El Niño caused a decline in national coffee production to 10%. Meanwhile, the long wet season due to La Niña caused the decreased production to 80%. One predicted that Indonesia will stop exporting coffee in 2035 without effective adaptation strategies. 

Climate change puts coffee production and the livelihoods of coffee farmers and their families at risk. Indonesia has 2.33 million coffee farmers who mostly live in poverty. Climate change causes coffee productivity to decrease, but coffee farmers cannot do anything about it because they do not have agricultural knowledge and captial. The demand for food like coffee grow fast while the farms’ productivity is still low. Therefore, building capacity and improving the livelihoods of coffee farmers for sustainable coffee consumption are urgent. 

Recently, Climate-smart agriculture(CSA) is emerging as a solution for climate change adaptation agricultural methods. It is an integrated approach presented at the Hague Conference of The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations(FAO) in 2010. Climate-smart agriculture is an integrated approach to managing landscapes that address the interlinked challenges of food security and accelerating climate change. It aims simultaneously to achieve three outcomes; productivity improvement, climate change adaptability, and greenhouse gas reduction. Coffee farmers can minimize the negative effect of climate change and maintain coffee productivity through climate-smart agriculture. 

“Through the business model that Ritma Green engages me in, I am able to develop a small coffee nursery business. I can now say that coffee will provide bright future for me and people in my community.”