Coffee Prices Skyrocket: Why Yunnan Farmers Remain Anxious

The washed beans produced at Brother He’s estate are now ordered directly by coffee trading companies and community coffee shops in Shanghai. Other estate owners also purchase washed beans from Brother He in bulk for further processing and final roasting. “The coffee market is doing well now, and they plan to sell my coffee in the US,” Brother He says.

The era of low prices for Yunnan coffee has come to a temporary end. However, much like production regions abroad, Yunnan has frequently suffered from natural disasters. In the face of these challenges, what can Yunnan coffee farmers do in advance?

III. Exploring Ecological Transformation

Three years ago, Ziling and Xiaohouzi, the founders of the LOHAS Community Lab, came to Pu’er, where climate change had already become a pressing and difficult problem.

Coffee trees blossom when the rainy season arrives; the flowering period is short, usually lasting only two to three days. Once the blossoms fade, the trees begin to fruit, and when the rainy season ends, the fruit enters the ripening and harvest phase.

They discovered that in recent years, the climate in Pu’er has become unpredictable, with extreme weather appearing frequently. The coffee growth cycle is particularly susceptible to rainfall. Over the past three years, the first rain of the year in Pu’er has consistently arrived early; last year, it shifted from March–May to February–March, causing the coffee trees to blossom prematurely. However, the rain remained intermittent, and buds that formed early were prone to drying out in March and April, severely impacting the fruiting rate. After the rainy season officially began in late May this year, the rainfall was so heavy and prolonged that some side branches of the coffee trees could not bear the weight of the fruit and required poles for support to prevent them from snapping.

At the LOHAS Community Lab, Ziling and Xiaohouzi experimented in a test plot on the coffee estate, planting aggregate grass, mung beans, marigolds, rye grass, Sudan grass, October blue beans, bamboo beans, and bentgrass. They sow these plants during the rainy season and mow them during the dry season to use as green manure. This covers the soil and increases the fertility of the coffee trees. This green manure can replace chemical fertilisers, improving the soil and making the coffee trees stronger and more resilient to climate change.

However, the shift in rainfall patterns in Pu’er also affected their green manure planting. In May 2023, the rainy season was delayed, leaving the green manure to face over a month of drought. By the time the rain finally arrived in late June, the green manure had been completely wiped out. The first year’s green manure plan ended in failure; fortunately, weeds grew in the field, which could be mowed for cover, though the fertility was far below expectations.

Climate change has brought more than just changes in rainfall to coffee farmers. High temperatures and drought can also lead to large-scale reductions in yield. A few years ago, Chen Si began intercropping fruit trees in his coffee fields to serve as shade trees. During periods of high temperature and drought, these shade trees lower the field temperature and protect the coffee trees from being scorched. This provides an extra layer of insurance against pests and disasters while enhancing the biodiversity of the farmland. In addition to coffee, the land also holds over ten mu of terrace tea plants.

Liao Xiugui, now in his 80s, was once an agricultural technician. Since the 1980s, he has guided farmers in Pu’er on how to grow coffee and founded the Xiaoaozi Manor. He believes that a stable microclimate and ecological planting methods can also improve coffee quality. He plants shade trees on the highlands of the estate, leaves grass to cover the soil in low-lying areas, and incorporates coffee husks back into the land as fertiliser, improving the soil through deep plowing. “For over 20 years, the estate has never used chemical herbicides, and pest control is done by hand. Walking through the estate, you can hear insects humming and birds singing everywhere. We haven’t feared the droughts of the last two years; because the ecosystem is well-constructed, the land’s ability to resist drought and retain water is strong. The flavour of the coffee beans has actually become more pronounced.”

Of course, there are simpler methods. Many farmers use plastic mulch to retain soil moisture during droughts. However, Ziling believes this does not solve the problem of soil erosion and introduces plastic pollution, meaning it is by no means a long-term solution.

Large-scale monoculture, bare-soil planting, the heavy use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides, and the use of plastic mulch are all conventional planting methods that seem most “cost-effective” in the short term. Yet, old experience has shown that coffee trees, as perennial woody crops with high flavour requirements, may not be able to survive healthily in the long term with these short-term fixes. Some experts, social organisations, and farmers have begun to experiment with more environmentally friendly and ecological coffee cultivation methods.

After three consecutive years of setbacks and exploration, Ziling believes that current coffee planting lacks controllable technology or fixed time nodes; all attempts feel like blind men feeling an elephant. They plan to install weather stations in the experimental and control plots of the coffee estate to monitor rainfall, air humidity, temperature, and soil moisture. Meanwhile, they will sow green manure seeds one month before the rainy season to observe whether fluctuations in morning and evening temperature and humidity help the seeds germinate earlier. Furthermore, they are adjusting fertiliser application timings and types to enhance nutrient supply during critical stages of flowering and fruiting.