Climate-smart perennial systems

Although coffee is a promising cash crop, smallholder farmers that grow coffee are still vulnerable. Soil fertility is declining, pest and disease pressure is increasing, populations are rising, and land is continuously fragmented. Above all, climate change is starting to take its toll and puts further pressure on the coffee-based farming systems directly, because temperature and rainfall have an impact on the physiology of Arabica coffee, and indirectly because the incidence and severity of certain pests and diseases such as the coffee berry borer and coffee leaf rust will increase.