Coffee Apocalypse Coming? Demand and Brazilian Drought Point to ‘Yes’

Drought-stricken Brazil will probably produce 10% fewer harvests of popular Robusta and Arabica coffee beans over the next year. That, along with a projected increase in global demand means the beans will become increasingly precious, according to the Foreign Agricultural Service’s coffee bean production report.

Coffee lovers, grab a cup of java, a box of tissues, and be prepared to find a support group.

It’s coming.
A global coffee shortage.
Breathe in, breathe out…

Blame the traumatic news on this crazy weather we’ve been having.

And fewer beans mean higher prices, so if you think Starbucks is overpriced now, just wait. You’ll pay more to be unhealthy.

Brazil, the world’s largest coffee producer, churns out some 50 million bags of coffee each year. The production of Robusta beans is expected to fall 3.7 million bags to 13.3 million. Arabica bean production is forecasted to fall 1.2 million bags to 36.1 million.

The combined Arabica and Robusta harvest is forecast to drop by 4.9 million bags to 49.4 million. [1]

That’s like, a week’s worth of coffee for some people.

Read: 8 True Benefits of Drinking Coffee You Didn’t Know About

There’s one little K-cup of good news in all this. A shortage may not be imminent. Thanks to perfect growing conditions in Honduras, Indonesia, and Vietnam, world coffee production for 2015 and 2016 is forecast up 600,000 bags over the previous year to 150.1 million overall – offsetting the shortfall in Brazil.

There’s still time to stock up, and stock up you should, because it’s almost inevitable that a true shortage is coming as long as the drought persists in Brazil. If you’ve never been a prepper in the past, for the love of all that is holy, start prepping now. The world is already a scary place. We don’t need withdrawal headaches and mood swings making things worse.

And if you’re a coffee snob, you’re probably contributing to the coming shortage (ha).

“Regardless of what happens in Brazil now … we will see higher prices and more competition for higher-quality coffee,” Kim Elena Ionescu, a coffee buyer for North Carolina-based coffee roasting company Counter Culture says.

It will take an additional 40 to 50 million bags over the next decade to keep up with demand, and Italian coffee roaster Andrea Illy says that “sooner or later, we’ll have to make a bold decision about what to do. We don’t know where this coffee will come from.” [2]

Stock up? When the under-caffeinated zombie apocalypse hits, you can take comfort in knowing you were warned and took action.

Sources:

[1] Daily Mail

[2] Science Alert