The El Niño weather phenomenon which changed weather patterns around the Pacific Ocean and across the world has abated. According to the United States Climate Predicition Center, currents in the Pacific are likely to convert to a pattern called La Niña by August of 2024. How does La Niña affect coffee production? The effects of La Niña on the biggest coffee producing regions of Brazil, Vietnam, and the Central America to Colombia corridor will be somewhat different.
What Is La Niña?
La niña is Spanish for little girl as opposed to little boy which is what el niño means. El niño is used to describe a weather pattern that commonly begins around Christmas and therefore refers to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. La niña is simply a designation for the opposite weather pattern. El Niño is when the trade winds that typically blow from East to West across the Pacific at the equator weaken. This causes warmer water to be pushed back against the west coast of the Americas and for the jet stream to move south from it usual location. The result is dryer weather in South America and north and west North America while south and east of North America get torrential rains and snow. Weather patterns are typically energized making storms more ferocious.
When trade winds strengthen again across the equator in the Pacific and even become stronger the La Niña weather pattern is that the jet stream moves north and warm water is pushed toward Asia. This typically leads to a more energetic hurricane season, torrential rains in the north and west of North America and droughts in south and east. In South America La Niña can cause severe droughts in Brazil and Argentina and dryer conditions farther north turning to heavier rain across the northern amazon and moderately more rain in the Colombian coffee growing region in the west of the Andes and up into Central America. Across the Pacific in the world biggest producer of robusta coffee, Vietnam is likely to see torrential rains for the duration of the La Niña weather event.
Will the El Niño La Niña Patterns Become More Common?
The weather pattern reversals of El Niño to La Niña and back occur roughly every two to seven years but never have settled in to a more regular pattern. La Niña commonly lasts a few months to a couple of years while El Niño can go on for six to eight years. There is some speculation that a generally warmer climate will cause these events to not only become fiercer but to make them switch back and forth more rapidly. What that means for agriculture and the coffee industry in particular will possible lead to rapid switching between droughts and floods with little time for more moderate weather patterns. If that it the case production will be damaged on both ends of the scale and prices will rise.
La Niña Effects on Colombia
The likely effects of La Niña on Colombia will differ between the south and east versus the west and north. Amazonia will see heavier rains while the western and northern Andes will see a moderate increase. Because the huge ranges of elevation in the mountains micro climates will also moderate or worsen these effects. For the coffee crop, heavier rains will help alleviate the effects of greater heat. However, with heat and humidity come greater risks of coffee plant diseases like leaf rust. Because coffee is traditionally planted on slopes the plants will not drown. However, in the Cauca Valley bread basket where so much of Colombia’s vegetable and other food stuffs are grown excessive rain and floods may, in fact, threaten the food supply. Colombia’s President Petro has warned of this being a climate emergency.
The bottom line for the coffee crop is that production may be diminished which, along with problems in other arabica producing regions will probably lead to higher prices for good coffee.