Welcome to Recap, a brief overview of recent coffee developments every two weeks from the Specialty Coffee Association.

It may have only taken Hurricane Eta 36 hours to grow from a tropical depression to a strong category four storm, but it will take those who fell in the storm’s path months, if not years, to recover. Traveling through Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Panama, Hurricane Eta caused an initial US$5 billion in damage. Compared to 1998’s Hurricane Mitch, the most destructive storm to hit Central America, Hurricane Eta is expected to cause more damage due to the speed at which the water rose. Sustained winds, flash floods, and mudslides affected millions of people and destroyed thousands of hectares of crops. Estimates of damage to coffee-growing regions have been slow to arrive, because the damage to roads and other infrastructure has kept coffee institutions and producer organizations from reaching those areas hardest hit. However, coffee smallholders are likely particularly affected, as the storm’s arrival coincided with the beginning of what was expected to be a very fruitful harvest. This comes at a time when most of the communities affected were already struggling with labor shortages and a drop in production due to COVID-19. “We fear that families will struggle with immediate food insecurity, severe harvest loss, loss of income, and might need to rebuild houses,” said Pablo Ruiz of Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung, an NGO working in the region. 

A number of donation drives have been launched to try and address the immediate needs of the coffee smallholders by actors in the sector. These include, but are not limited to: Operation Eta, Ally Coffee, Funcafé, Anacafé, Habitat for Humanity Guatemala, Acción Joven Foundation, New Destiny Foundation, Lafise Bank, and Onyx Coffee. Devastatingly, at the time of recording, a second hurricane, a category two storm named Iota, is projected to make landfall in the same location on Monday, November 16, two weeks after Eta. The frequency, strength, rapid intensification, and total rainfall of this year’s storms are further evidence of the ongoing climate crisis. The effects of the climate crisis on subsistence farmers, compounded with low coffee prices, has historically led to an increase in emigration from the region. According to the Guardian, Central American governments were already struggling with the economic downturn of the pandemic. Where international governments have stepped in to fill gaps during natural disasters affecting the region before, they are unlikely to be as forthcoming with aid due to their own pandemic-related problems now.

The Inter-African Coffee Organization is currently holding its 60th general meeting in Ghana. Dr. Emmanuel Dwomoh, the Deputy Chief Executive of Ghana’s Cocoa Board, has called for cocoa farmers, producers, roasters, and distributors to grow and process coffee. Noting that coffee can grow in some areas where cocoa can’t, Dr. Dwomoh cited the growing culture of coffee consumption in Ghana and across Africa as an opportunity for the young generation to expand and develop the coffee sector. The President of the Coffee Federation of Ghana also suggested that coffee could help regain land previously lost to illegal mining activity. He noted that, although the coffee industry had struggled for a long time, coffee plants mature more quickly than cocoa and are easier to process, and are therefore more profitable. A previously competitive coffee producer, Ghana largely abandoned the crop in the 1980s due to the global collapse in the price of coffee. 

If you want to dive deeper into anything you heard today or make a donation to Eta relief efforts, check out the links in the description of this episode. Recap will return in January 2021. Thanks for listening.