Your coffee’s getting pricier – and climate change could keep it that way

Tucked away in the mountainous highlands of Chiapas in southern Mexico, around 150 coffee farmers on the Edelmann family farm work with their hands for hours on end. The shade of tree canopies is the only barrier between their bodies and the summer sun.

Tucked away in the mountainous highlands of Chiapas in southern Mexico, around 150 coffee farmers on the Edelmann family farm work with their hands for hours on end. The shade of tree canopies is the only barrier between their bodies and the summer sun. Tomas Edelmann, a fourth-generation coffee farmer and vice president of the international Coffee Farmer’s Co-op, told CNN that while their shade-grown method of producing coffee is more drought-resistant, a longer-than-normal dry season that he blames on climate change still caused crops to suffer this year. “If you don’t have the right weather, you will not have the right production,” he said. “And with low yields, obviously your cost of production goes up.” Those higher production costs mean coffee lovers could have to shell out more in the future as prices reach highs unseen since over a decade ago. Roasters and coffee experts are also signaling that prices could remain higher for longer, as factors like climate change reduce the coffee global supply. The International Coffee Organization (ICO), an intergovernmental organization established in 1963 with the support of the United Nations, reported last month that the ICO Composite Indicator Price – a key reference price for the global coffee industry – hit a 13-year high, averaging 226.83 cents, or around $2.27 per pound. “Coffee’s a very complicated commodity. Part of that reason is because you have multiple supply and demand frameworks impacting the price,” said Ryan Delany, founder and chief analyst at Coffee Trading Academy.