Coffee Prices Are Soaring, but Growers Aren’t Celebrating

These should be wonderful times at Finca El Puente, a coffee plantation carved into the mountains of southwestern Honduras. On world markets, the price of ordinary coffee has more than doubled over the past year. The specialty varieties of coffee harvested at the farm have long commanded a hefty premium, reflecting their status as the source of aromatic brews savored like fine wine from Seattle to Seoul. On a recent afternoon, a buyer from Malaysia was visiting to taste the latest offerings.

Yet the owners of the operation — Marysabel Caballero, a fourth-generation coffee farmer, and her husband, Moises Herrera — are increasingly apprehensive. The costs of production have swelled. They must pay extra wages to attract scarce workers; fertilizer has gotten more expensive. Their crop has been ravaged by ill-timed rains and volatile temperatures. Even after the surge in prices, they are likely to earn less this year than last.

They brood over the possibility that high prices may prompt some coffee drinkers to limit their consumption, substituting cheaper products like soda and energy drinks to satisfy some of their caffeine craving.

The further into the future they contemplate, the greater their concern. More than anything, they worry about what is propelling prices higher: climate change, which has diminished the supply of coffee around the globe via rising temperatures, droughts and excessive rains — most recently in Brazil and Vietnam, the world’s two largest coffee producers.

This is what generates anxiety at coffee plantations around the planet. Whoever benefits from rising prices today may be destroyed by the next calamity tomorrow.

Finca El Puente’s crop was damaged by a cold snap in December and January, followed by late rains that dissuaded their workers from venturing into the plantations to pick ripe fruit. Given this, they see record prices less as a windfall than a manifestation of unfolding troubles.