scientists are warning that more than
half of the world's wild coffee species
are at risk of extinction but scientists
right here in the UK are ringing the
alarm about climate change and how it
could put your morning cup of coffee at
risk
climate change is going to negatively
impact the quality of coffee in the
future at the start of this year a paper
was published titled high extinction
risk for wild coffee species and
implications of coffee sector
sustainability it was picked up by a
number of news outlets and they all
covered it a little bit but I wanted to
know more so I traveled down to the
Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew to speak to
the leader author dr. Aaron Davis I'd
met Aaron previously at a symposium
event we had given a fantastic talk and
we'd stayed in touch since you might
recognize him as the author of the
coffee atlas of ethiopia the gardens our
cue are open to the public and are
fascinating and beautiful but I was
excited that I could meet Aaron in the
herbarium its cues collection of plant
species over seven million samples
collected from around the world and we
sat in an alcove and discussed the paper
and its implications and coffee in
genetics and so much more for an hour or
so here's that conversation which I hope
you enjoy
[Music]
my name is Aaron Davis I am senior
research leader here at the wrong time
gardens kew I head up the plant
resources team but I am a coffee
specialist I suppose I'm a coffee
biologist by training I am a botanist at
what point in your career did you begin
to specialize in coffee about 20 years
ago I did a post doctoral study in
Madagascar and part of the project was
to investigate the wild coffees of
Madagascar it was an opportunity it was
purely by chance that I ended up working
on coffee but within within a short
period I became fascinated by the mother
the organism you know there's early days
I didn't really connect it with the
beverage or or the industry or the sex I
right right that came quite a bit later
for me I think I met you six years ago I
think and it was incredibly exciting for
me to meet someone who who seemed
outside of my industry you know we seem
to have our fixed experts and then you
appeared and knew so much about coffee
in this whole other sense than than
anyone else I've really spoken to more
than just this one species that is my
day-to-day life and most people's
relationship with coffee
Arabica right like you you opened my
mind to the idea of the sheer volume of
species that are out there which is what
I want to talk about directly yeah so so
most people watching this will probably
know Arabica they're probably no robusta
as its trade name so to speak they've
maybe heard of something like like
Baraka and that's three of 124 124
species and I had no idea that there
were this many going back to where I
started what fascinated me was here was
he was a crop plant of global
significance you know global the
important commodity and we didn't know
how many species there were
or very much really about some of the
wild species and that's what I did for
for at least 10 years
in fact in effect still doing today so
the process is of just what we could
describe in new species it has been
going on for many centuries and
essentially you're looking for plants
that differ from other plants what are
the differences we can't deal cataloging
the diversity of the coffee genus so
some of them were discovered in the
sense that we were in the walking in the
forest and we found them for the very
first time others were found here in the
herbarium that had been collected maybe
a hundred years ago but had languished
sort of undiscovered to scientists
everything in terms of the other species
out there I think you know if you if
you've read your coffee history you
might have come across new generators
mmm the parent one of the two parents of
Arabica and you might have come across I
think you cos wrote about stena filler
yes in a very positive way it was better
he said but he got that idea from
somebody else oh really you know it's
been copied back through history so I
think it's a French French scientist or
a French coffee specialist who first
said that said it was better than than
Arabica or as good as Arabica
I think that these sort of species are
really the beginning of the wider story
that your paper is telling right like
the the paper you published at the start
of this year can be difficult I would
have a go myself but can you give a very
brief summary of the paper I'll make
sure it's linked below here so people
can read it can I start again
back back all those years ago when I
first started yeah with coffee because
one of the things that came became very
paranoid quickly it was a lot of these
species were correct and try to be rare
and threatened in the wild and at that
point not that we needed to start to
gather the data to make up a genus wide
a coffee wide assessment solo
here we had the opportunity to actually
do that properly through the IUCN Red
List system so that's a very stringent
system where you assess the threat
status the extinction status of any
plant or animal so we did that for
coffee and what we found was that
actually 60% of those 124 coffee species
are threatened with extinction
including Arabica but it gets a little
bit worse than that because if you look
at the material that's in seed
collections living collections what we
call germ has and collections it's not
really probably conserved it's not
enough species representation there's
not enough representation of water
populations including or keep every
species why do we want to preserve them
what what's that what I mean beyond just
it's nice to have lots of species
because it's nice to know some species
what's that what's the bigger plan for
those potential species in the future so
that's one of the things we're really
saying in the paper is that we need
these species for the long-term
sustainability of the sector now that
might seem a bit fanciful a bit science
fiction but in fact if you look back at
the history of coffee cultivation that's
exactly what we've done we've taken new
species such as robusta and we've taken
different plants from different
populations with particular attributes
that have helped the industry sustain
production that's disease pest
resistance climate tolerance etc etc
we've called on those resources time and
time again to sustain coffee production
does climate change explain why we're
interested in other species again when
we hadn't been it seems for quite a long
time you your paper references I think
some works from the 20 years late 50s
early 60s that shows interest in other
species and there's this seeming gap
where we're not particularly in oh I
think I think the reason is a robusta or
the main reason is here we are with this
new plant came along
really got going in early 20th century
1920's 1930's and there wasn't really
much need to look at this other species
it had everything we needed
it had productivity it had other useful
attributes it was easy to grow it was
robust hence the name of Boston I mean
what was the point in developing other
species when we had this dropping of two
species that were actually fulfilled our
requirements may you in the paper you
categorized that these species in two
different ways firstly you by how
endangered they are from critically
through to the kind that the language
you use at the other end of like not not
particularly endangered at least concern
leader concerns the correct place what
percentage of species were critically
endangered and what time frame are we
talking about here is this they could go
in the next 5-10 years is this in the
next 30 years how how big is the window
you know of action but in terms of
coffee system sector sustainability
there was a high number of critically
endangered species in the group that
would be the priority for looking at the
development which was the other way you
divided yes in the is it crop world wild
relatives
it's a funny phrase you crop wild
relatives CWI's yeah so you divided
those into three groups it was a kind of
prioritization based on proximity to
Arabica is that yes and robusta and
robustly okay yeah proximity to
commercial yeah
agricultural coffee if you will yeah and
how big was that the sort of priority
group the priority group is actually
quite large
I'd say at least 35 40 species and where
are those species are they predominantly
Theo Pia or the Madagascar to know that
so the Madagascar ones are in group 3
which is the lower priority group
purely because the chemistry is so
different to African representatives in
the crop plants so I just want to go
into you know let's say we preserve the
species we present this material how
a practical way that we begin to access
that you know I've seen you know
traditional plant crossing happen a lot
in coffee I haven't seen much else am I
wrong have I missed out or okay up until
now I think the focus has been on
breeding there are an hour range of gene
editing techniques right you mentioned
somatic fusion in the paper which I
think has been successful for the
potatoes there's a suite of technologies
and those technologies are developing
very very rapidly yeah and you talk to
people who plant read in other plant
groups there's they're saying to people
I mean why aren't you using those
techniques sure and I think a problem
comes down to the public perception of
GMO what do you think things like yeah I
feel like CRISPR for example mmm there's
had a ton of positive press up this
world and CRISPR does have applications
for crop plants it's been used to think
in rice though a lot of the work as far
as I can tell has been more hypothetical
than it's been practical but does
something like CRISPR have applications
in coffee on same way absolutely where
the difficulty is in the u.s. CRISPR
doesn't come under GMO whereas in Europe
CRISPR comes under jetty modification
although if you're scientists you would
argue that that's not actually the case
but I think something like CRISPR could
have real potential particularly
particularly disease resistance right I
like to think we're really if we if
we're really interested in
sustainability and we're trying to
tackle the Mets and the major diseases
like coffee leaf rust I think we have to
look at those technologies so do you
think there's a there's an option we're
very simply we go back and look at the
agricultural viability of some of these
sort of priority one pretty close to
Arabica Robusto kind of species where we
think what if we start planting these
what if we start growing these do they
taste good is that is that a answer yes
that's the work we started okay so what
we're did in group one which is the main
crop species and their parents which in
use lab Erica
robusta and then as priority group to
which are species that have potential to
breed with those species or to break
amongst themselves to make new crops our
species in our own crop species in their
own right or indeed have been used
before so Liberec is a really good
example I think the barrack hazard model
promise it does need work at this
development but look it's been
interesting because I'm almost going
full circle now back looking at wild
species and I think the thing that
really excites me is that you know this
is this is a fanciful assistant science
fiction I really do think there's
potential there we just need the
investment and I'm particularly excited
because what I see is the potential to
really do something in terms of climatic
tolerance so I want to dig into climatic
tolerance a little bit more broadly
speaking Arabica likes altitude not
because about food but because of lots
of sunlight and then a large swing
diurnal temperatures right it's a warm
warm warm in the day cold cold cold at
night and that means that you have used
to essentially slow the biology of the
plant quite a lot at night you end up
with a denser seed and a better tasting
product it's about that
fast and slow period feed feed feed and
then slowly we'll call the cool tropics
right when we talk about climate
tolerance you know the ability to
withstand hotter nights and the hotter
days is to some extent what we're
talking about as well as I suspect less
access to water I think there's been a
lot of focus on temperatures mm-hmm but
in many parts of the world it's water
it's the availability of waters
it's waning it's in terms of when it's
in it when it's in the ground collapses
in the ground
so it's a it's really that that balance
between water and temperature that's
important but temperature is going to
happen like continue we're gonna see
that half full degrees Celsius rise and
if you look at the climate change models
they're pretty much all in agreement
that we're gonna see an increase in
temperature always we're seeing an
increase in temperature where is this
little bit of heat
going to punish Arabica as it is right
now you can't pinpoint the effect of
temperature so any period or or any
process it because of this relationship
with water and with seasonality so for
example you can withstand 28 degrees
if the waters are sorry if the soil is
full of water if is that fill capacity
we say so it's nicely evenly saturated
mm-hmm but if there's no water in soil
or little water in soil 25 degrees could
be lethal 28 degrees could be lethal as
we go looking for solutions in other
species one what characteristics we were
looking for then are they is it that
they are able to thrive with less water
is that is it some set of drought
resistance or just a lower daily
requirement so to speak we have a
hundred 24 coffee species and there they
have evolved into different habitats
they are adapted so what we're looking
for is plants that have specific
climatic torrents attributes so that
might be a shorter wet season along with
dry season so there are plants that are
adaptive those sorts of conditions or it
might be we have a plant that's adapted
to very wet conditions very humid
conditions and that plant might have
disease tolerance to fungal pathogens
for example it's a matter of taking that
those genetic resources and the
attributes to breed be very prescriptive
about the plants that we want so it
might be we're breeding something for
East Africa that's completely different
to the requirements of Central America
my concern as I listen to you talk is
that you know this this feels like a
strategy for plant survival but this is
an agricultural plant way yield becomes
a huge consideration and if you have a
plant with limited access to what it
does some extent yeah can you even can
you cheat your environment to the extent
you can have a high yielding plant that
does well with limited rainfall or
reduced
you know it's not just about climatic
tolerance it's also about all the other
attributes that are required for a
problem productivity taste market value
peace of cultivation a willingness of
farmers to actually grow the crop in the
first place right so it's not it's not
easy by any means but as I say I think I
think it become increasingly more
optimistic about the use of wild species
because I'm seeing the potential to meet
the requirements for for some it was
some part of the coffee growing
community I want to sort of push into
the towards the conclusions of the paper
and and we accept that coffee is
threatened we accept we need to keep as
many of these species alive and and
healthy as possible and and you you
point out there's a couple of ways of
doing that and broadly they're divided
into Institue and exit sugars right like
so in the fields as they would grow in
their natural habitats would be
institute you would protect them through
national parks or other protected
forests as them as their own
that's right yeah exits you would be
cryopreservation yes as one option yeah
it would be something like variety
gardens or with that yeah so living
collection listen collection it could be
in vitro sloka locator which explains
that while so you you basically growing
the plant that's slowing its growth in
Philly yeah yeah so you can preserve
lots of different species or varieties
in a very small space and and you you
point out living collections can be
problematic right because you can't
prevent some level of crossing happening
naturally is person problem you would
envisage mmm-hmm because it's an open
pollination environment right and indeed
when you look at the genetic data for
some of those collections you can see
they've been compromised species had
inter crossed and what happens is a lot
of those collections have reproduced by
seed so the seed has gathered right on
the trees planted but they've got no way
of ensuring that that wasn't
produced by a hybrid pops used by a
crossing event and we see that we see
lines of coffee planted that was meant
to be species X whereas in fact
combinational other species so if if
money were no object in had limitless
resources what's the best way to
preserve all of these species is it
cryopreservation is that the gold
standard is it living collections but
just really well-maintained ones is it
actually Institute
what you have to remember is if if
you're taking you're preserving
something makes it to the amount of
genetic diversity you can catch your
situation credibly limited I mean you
know we calculated that there were
thirteen and a half billion genotypes in
Ethiopia now you're not going to capture
that diversity hey execute collection
and that's an extreme example but it's
always going to be a compromise right
and that's why we do genomics to find
out that the variability so we're
capturing as much variability as
possible ultimately what you need to do
is to preserve things in situ in the
wild because they're also under
selective continuing selective pressure
they're adapting to the environment so
you want you want that you and you want
that standing variation but that's no
good if you're a coffee breeder or
producer you want material that you can
access to use so we do need those living
collections we need those exits your
collections to cryopreservation sample
them you know bridges acceptor can use
can access easily quickly to develop
plants historically obviously Ethiopia's
a key part of the world woman what is
all of this as I understood it the
Ethiopian government was not super
interested in in sharing only a lot of
that genetic wealth I guess is that is
that fair is that still the case
I think it's that's still a case why is
that why they're sort of a like
I think because if you look back
a recent history I'm not talking
hundreds of years ago I'm talking the
last 40 or 50 years material has been
taken out of Ethiopia and developed and
commercially successful of Ethiopians
would argue you know what what we
benefit' benefited from that and the
answer is absolutely nothing okay she's
a good example many producers making you
know their livelihoods out of geisha or
developing geisha but none of that IP is
flowing back into the okay so it's a
it's quite a recent example and a good
one because guys just spreading
throughout the world as far as I can see
does climate change not make keeping
insecure collections harder and harder
still in some places that might be the
case if you have access to irrigation
and can I move to those issues and I
guess the last the last impossible
question well that you know the
difficult question is that I read the
paper and I understand the problem and I
understand that the urgency and I
understand some of the solutions and if
you're watching this you made me feel
the same way like okay I get it all
right this this freaks me out what can I
do where's the practical part of this
where I as an individual be it someone
who just drinks coffee or someone in the
coffee industry how do I help it's a
tricky one because there's so many other
things to do that's the problem I think
it's like it's not this is one of
several problems you know with producers
of facing either profitability crisis
unless we do something about that pretty
quickly
lots of producers are gonna start giving
up producing coffee you know there are
so what are we doing about Yemen you
know the crisis in use if it's all
interconnected there's just so many
different urgent requirements that's
difficult to achieve so right I'm gonna
support a B or C I think it needs
serious funding of course we're talking
in a multi multi-million pound projects
should it be something like at a global
scale since it's a UN or well bank or
something large that has the funding to
make a real difference you know and
maybe it's about us about better
organization you know I actually feel
the coffee research community is quite
disparate and quite fragmented for a
number of reasons I think that needs to
be resolved I'm gonna push you one more
time yeah no no no but I mean like oh
yeah I'm watching this mm-hm I'm
concerned what is my action what is my
practical help is it donate money to Q
is it donate my idea copy research is it
you know put pressure wherever I can on
organizations to fund something like
this is it you know going out and
harassing the Gates Foundation into
dropping a cheque is it you know how you
know the the great problem with so much
of climate change is that most sensible
people accept it
the question of what do I do yeah is not
well answered take less flights okay
like do I do I buy less plastic does
that make a difference but I fly one
more time of year did I just break all
my good work like what do you what do
you want from me people I think we
wanted to participate and they went to
move in the right direction and I think
we're all looking for a house you know I
mean like how how does this happen and
in this case that's the question I come
back to which is I I wanted to see this
happen I want to see the recommendations
you make come to fruition
am i powerless that may be the key right
sorry these are these are big societal
issues of course but they're all
certainly interconnected we need a
carbon tax yeah absolutely
certainly we need a car
attacks across a full spectrum of human
utilities I'll go to say stop taking
fossil fuels out of the ground that's
absolutely certain yeah we have to
consume less we have to produce food
waste all those big things we have we
have to seriously address with powerful
legislation you and human will but I
still think you know looking at coffee
production we need to take a hard look
at what we're doing and I think you know
we we've failed I think with
certification largely by a knowledge we
vote yes it has achieved some good some
farmers clearly benefit others don't but
we still don't know precisely we don't
even know we only one got a clue I'd say
of the environment environmental impact
of our coffee purchasing and that is
absolutely clear you know with what's
what's the carbon footprint has the
coffee I just purchased resulted into it
deforestation the answer is probably yes
in many circumstances so I think we
really need to take a good hard look at
certification in terms of the impact in
the environment because it that relates
back to losing species my reason we're
losing species is deforestation climate
change so you know we we have to think
holistically but we do need to think
about the way the coffee that we're
purchasing you'd be really honest about
and also I would say not just think a
bit in terms of how the degree of damage
but the degree of good you know if
you're buying for example Ethiopian
coffee you're buying coffee that's
associated with forests yes that forest
isn't as diverse as would be without
coffee but if it wasn't for coffee
production there wouldn't be a forest
there right so we have to sort of start
looking at those complexities to
understand some understand some of our
purchasing and to say look really look
at certification see and understand
exactly what it means
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you