Coffee Rust

This week the NY Times reported on the scourge of the coffee world - coffee rust.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/business/international/fungus-cripples-coffee-production-across-central-america.html

This fungal infection of coffee plants is hitting Central America hard, and has been for over a year. Combined with drought conditions in Brazil, coffee production is less than years past. This is a main reason coffee is trading higher on commodity exchange boards. You can also expect to see coffee prices go up.

The only way now to combat Coffee Rust is to uproot and burn the plants. This is wiping out the livelihood of millions of people around the world. The rust mostly affects Arabica plants, which is the coffee most coffee lovers enjoy. It's the higher quality coffee. Robusta seems to be fairly resistant to this. Some have expressed the concern that this will alter how we drink coffee. Meaning we may look more and more at Robusta coffees.

Sprudge has shared some pretty shocking facts about Coffee Rust.

http://sprudge.com/11-facts-about-rust.html

It looks like troubling times ahead for the coffee industry. One questioned raised in the Sprudge article. Are we willing to pay more for coffee if it means some of that money can go into research to combat Coffee Rust? I'm not sure.

Charlie