Date post: | 04-Jul-2015 |
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News & Politics |
Upload: | buyorganiccoffee |
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Leaf Rust Kills Organic Coffee Crops
By www.buyorganiccoffee.org
A seemingly eternal threat to growing healthy organic coffee is a fungus that is
native to the tropics where coffee is grown.
http://buyorganiccoffee.org/799/leaf-rust-kills-organic-coffee-crops/
Leaf rust attacks coffee crops and leaf rust kills organic
coffee crops.
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If an organic grower is unable to treat the problem with
non-chemical means he risks losing his crop and his
livelihood.
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The fungus’ proper name is Hemileia vastatrix.
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When it is not controlled the disease kills coffee plants and
reduces coffee growers to poverty.
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It starts as an orange to yellow somewhat powdery
discoloration on the underside of the leave of the coffee
plant.
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It begins as spots, less than a millimeter in diameter and
grows to millimeters diameter with a pale yellow
discoloration.
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It is known among Latin American coffee growers as “roya.” The issue for organic
http://buyorganiccoffee.org/799/leaf-rust-kills-organic-coffee-crops/
growers is that quarantine and destruction of individual
plants is not always effective.
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Thus a grower who has put the time, effort, and money into getting organic coffee
certification
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may lose everything unless he turns his back on organic
practices and spays the heck out of his coffee plants.
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Then he can only sell his produce at regular coffee prices and not the higher
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prices that good quality organic coffee commands.
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If he loses his crop he needs to replant, probably after spraying the soil, and wait
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several years for new coffee plants to reach maturity.
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Why Not Just Spray?
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Before organic coffee became popular growers use a copper based chemical to retard the
growth of coffee leaf rust.
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Then they switched to other synthetic fungicides.
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One of the older complaints, before folks worried about
being poisoned by chemicals, was the
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copper treatment and others affected taste and produced a product that did not sell well nor command a good price.
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As leaf rust kills organic coffee crops today this is still an
issue.
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A grower could decide to treat with a modern fungicide and
save his coffee crop.
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He would then try to sell his coffee beans and hope that
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the treatment did not devalue his product compared to
regular coffee.
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Then he would need to resume organic farming
practices and wait the usual three years until he
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is certified to have avoided non-organic techniques long enough to be certified again.
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Follow the Money
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As leaf rust kills organic coffee crops the issue, as always, is
money.
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Starbucks, McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, and many others have gotten into organic coffee in a
big way.
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This movement has been good for the small grower and good for the environment and good for coffee drinkers who get a
better cup of coffee.
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It has always been about pressure from consumers who
want to avoid impurities in their coffee and who want to
protect the environment.
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What will these buyers do if their hand-picked growers need to spray to stay alive?
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Will they create a middle category of treated coffee?
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Growers will not stay with the organic movement if they
constantly need to recertify
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and do not get the rewards of better pay for their coffee
each and every year.
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At some point buyers and consumers may need to adopt the practical approaches that
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farmers have used for years and accept spraying when it is necessary to keep the sources
of good coffee alive.
http://buyorganiccoffee.org/799/leaf-rust-kills-organic-coffee-crops/