Coffee Prices Soar: Why Yunnan Farmers Remain Deeply Concerned
If you visit Pu’er in Yunnan this spring, you’ll find coffee farmers everywhere in high spirits. Green coffee bean prices have been climbing steadily for a year, jumping from 38 yuan per kilogram in early 2024 to 66 yuan per kilogram by May this year—a surge that has even outpaced gold.
Yunnan’s coffee sector has been passively swept up in these rollercoaster price swings. As recently as 2018, green beans hit an all-time low of just 13 yuan per kilogram. Seven years on, by May this year, prices had climbed to 66 yuan per kilogram, setting a new record high.
For the average coffee farmer in Pu’er, the unpredictable fluctuations in the price of this raw agricultural commodity are bewildering. It is hard to believe that just five or six years ago, coffee was still a money-losing cash crop, yielding less value than rubber or rice.
I. Yunnan Coffee Moves Beyond Its History of Low Prices
For years, the price paid for Yunnan’s coffee cherries was so low that it frequently failed to cover the labour costs of cultivation and harvesting. To offset the financial shortfall, some growers resorted to underhand practices to artificially boost the weight of their yield – mixing stones and soil into the fruit, soaking the cherries in water beforehand, or even injecting them directly with water.
Fluctuating domestic and international demand, coupled with unpredictable weather patterns, heavily impact both the quality and yield of coffee. This has led to frequent volatility in the purchase prices for Yunnan coffee cherries, with prices sometimes shifting daily. When market conditions are favourable, farmers often jack up their asking prices at local trading hubs. While this stems from a desire to push back against their traditional lack of bargaining power, it simultaneously fuels disorder in the trading markets.
Years of persistently low coffee prices severely dented farmers’ enthusiasm for cultivation. In many villages across Pu’er, younger generations abandoned their family plots to seek work in the city or the provincial capital, Kunming, to support their households. Harvest time left villages short-staffed, with ripening cherries going unpicked. Chen Si, a coffee farmer from Laoxu Village, Manlian, Nanping Town, Simao District, Pu’er, recalls: ‘When coffee bean prices were low, hiring labour to pick them would mean running at a loss. It was better to let the beans rot on the ground.’
In 2010, driven by international futures markets, the purchase price for Yunnan green beans skyrocketed to 41 yuan per kilogram, yielding profit margins exceeding 200% and breaking all previous records. This ignited a coffee boom in Pu’er. By the end of that year, the region’s planted area had surpassed 300,000 mu, pushing its total yield to the top in Yunnan province.
Chen Si remembers that when prices first slumped, local farmers would simply chop down their coffee trees to plant tea instead. But as prices later climbed, the community scrambled to switch back. Migrant labourers returned home, and even property developers sold off their buildings to invest in coffee plantations.
II. Proactively Responding to Price Fluctuations
Well acquainted with the mountain geography and climate, he discovered a river valley in Manxieba Village, Nanping Town, Simao District. Collective forest at the summit served to conserve water sources, while the Qingshui River wound down the slope into the valley, offering a refreshing coolness even under the scorching sun. Brother He leased over 50 mu of land in one go, stretching from the mid-slope down to the valley floor, and signed a 50-year agreement. He built a house and cultivated vegetables in the valley, powering his daily life with solar energy. Alongside his coffee crops, he raised chickens and geese beneath the forest canopy and constructed pig sheds, establishing what has now become a self-sustaining ecosystem. Nourished by the valley’s unique microclimate and farmyard manure, Brother He’s coffee trees have thrived consistently.
Yet volatile coffee prices meant Mr He’s plans were constantly overtaken by events. From 2018 onwards, coffee prices plummeted once more. Green coffee bean prices in Yunnan hovered between 13-15 yuan per kilogram, at times falling below the cost of cultivation and harvesting. Many farmers felled their coffee trees to switch to tea or fruit crops, or simply abandoned the plots, leading to a sharp contraction in Yunnan’s coffee-growing area. At the same time, speculative capital withdrew, and young people returned to city jobs, leaving their hometown coffee fields behind with little to no maintenance.
It was not until 2021, when coffee demand picked up again, that prices finally began to recover.Meanwhile, major global coffee-producing regions such as Brazil and Vietnam were hit by droughts, frosts, and pest outbreaks, which reduced yields and pushed prices higher.The average price of Yunnan green coffee beans rose from 15 yuan per kilogram in 2018 to 29 yuan per kilogram by the end of 2021. Compounded by the impact of extreme weather, coffee bean prices experienced even sharper fluctuations in 2024. By this year, the price of Yunnan green coffee beans had surged past 60 yuan per kilogram.
Farmers in Pu’er have taken the initiative, experimenting with various methods to elevate both the quality and market value of their beans.
One strategy involves handling further processing in-house.
Over the past few years, Mr He and his wife have started processing washed beans themselves. After more than a decade working with coffee, he can now assess how thoroughly the beans have dried simply by tasting them and testing their texture between his teeth.
For the same batch of coffee cherries, selling them unprocessed would only fetch him 8-10 yuan per kilogram. By processing them himself using both natural (sun-dried) and washed methods, the resulting green beans can command prices of 40-50 yuan per kilogram.
Washed beans from his estate are now being directly ordered by coffee traders and community coffee shops in Shanghai. Owners of other coffee estates are also purchasing the washed beans in bulk straight from him for further processing and final roasting. “The coffee market is thriving right now, and they’re planning to export my beans to the US,” says Brother He.
The era of low prices for Yunnan coffee has, for now, drawn to a close. Yet, much like producing regions abroad, Yunnan has repeatedly been hit by natural disasters. Faced with the threat of extreme weather, what can Yunnan’s coffee farmers do to prepare in advance?
III. Exploring Ecological Transition
Three years ago, Ziling and Xiao Houzi, founders of the LOHAS Community Lab, arrived in Pu’er, where climate change quickly presented itself as a thorny challenge.
Coffee trees flower with the onset of the rainy season. The blooming period is short, typically lasting just two or three days. Once the flowers fade, the trees begin to set fruit, which matures and is ready for harvest by the time the rains end.
They have observed that in recent years, Pu’er’s climate has become increasingly unpredictable, with extreme weather events occurring more frequently. The coffee growing cycle, highly sensitive to rainfall, has been particularly affected. Over the past three years, the first rains of the year have arrived progressively earlier. Last year, the onset shifted from March–May into February–March, causing the coffee trees to flower prematurely. However, the rainfall has been erratic; early flower buds are prone to drying out in March and April, severely impacting fruit set. When the formal rainy season arrived in late May this year, the sheer volume and duration of the downpours meant that side branches in some cases could not bear the weight of the ripening fruit, requiring farmers to prop them up with poles to prevent snapping.
At the LOHAS Community Lab, Ziling and Xiao Houzi have been experimenting in trial plots at coffee estates by planting comfrey, mung beans, marigolds, ryegrass, Sudan grass, October green beans, bamboo beans, and orchard grass. These plants are sown during the rainy season and cut back when the dry season arrives to serve as green manure. Left to cover the soil, they enrich it and boost fertility for the coffee trees. This type of green manure can replace synthetic fertilisers, improving soil structure, strengthening the coffee trees, and ultimately building greater resilience in the face of a changing climate.
However, the shifting rainfall patterns in Pu’er have also impacted their green manure cultivation. In May 2023, the rainy season was delayed, leaving the green manure to endure over a month of drought. By the time the rains finally arrived at the end of June, the green manure had been completely wiped out. The first year’s green manure plan was declared a failure. Fortunately, weeds had taken root and could be cut to serve as ground cover, though the resulting fertility fell far short of expectations.
Climate change brings more than just altered rainfall to coffee farmers. High temperatures and droughts can also trigger massive yield losses. Several years ago, Chen Si began intercropping and alley-cropping fruit trees as shade trees within his coffee fields. During periods of heat and dryness, these canopies lower field temperatures and shield the coffee plants from scorching. This not only provides an extra layer of protection against disease and climate shocks but also enhances the farm’s biodiversity. Beyond coffee, the fields also host over ten mu of terraced tea bushes.
Liao Xiugui, now in his eighties, was formerly an agricultural technician who has been guiding Pu’er farmers in coffee cultivation since the 1980s and founded the Xiaoaozi Estate. He believes that a stable microclimate and ecological farming practices can also elevate coffee quality. Across his estate, he plants shade trees on the higher ground and leaves grass to cover the soil in low-lying areas. He also incorporates coffee cherry pulp as fertiliser into the earth, improving the soil through deep tilling. “In over twenty years, the estate has never used chemical herbicides, and pest control is handled by handpicking. Walk through the estate and you’ll hear birdsong and insect chirps everywhere. We’ve faced droughts over the past two years, but we aren’t afraid. With a well-established ecosystem, the soil’s ability to retain water and withstand dry spells is strong. Paradoxically, the flavour of the coffee beans has become even more pronounced.”
Of course, there are simpler methods. During dry spells, many farmers lay plastic mulch over the soil to retain moisture. Yet Ziling argues that this does little to address soil erosion, introduces plastic pollution, and is hardly a sustainable long-term solution.
Large-scale monoculture, bare-soil cultivation, heavy reliance on synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides, and the use of plastic mulch all represent the conventional farming methods that currently appear most cost-effective. However, years of experience have shown that coffee, as a perennial woody crop with exacting flavour requirements, cannot thrive long-term under these short-term fixes. Consequently, some experts, non-governmental organisations, and farmers have begun experimenting with more environmentally friendly and ecologically sound approaches to coffee cultivation.
After three consecutive years of setbacks and experimentation, Ziling believes that coffee cultivation currently lacks reliable techniques or fixed seasonal markers; every attempt feels like navigating without a map. They plan to install weather stations in both the trial and control plots across the coffee estates to monitor rainfall, air humidity, temperature, and soil moisture levels. Meanwhile, they intend to sow green manure seeds a full month before the rainy season begins, observing whether early-morning and late-afternoon fluctuations in temperature and humidity can encourage earlier germination. Additionally, they are adjusting fertiliser application timing and types to bolster nutrient supply during the critical flowering and fruiting stages of the coffee plants.
IV. Who Will Walk Alongside Yunnan’s Coffee Farmers on Their Specialty Coffee Journey?
How can scientific research, market mechanisms, and policy frameworks work together to help growers navigate these climate and market pressures? Foodthink will continue to track developments across Yunnan’s coffee sector and document the stories of its farmers.
Photos are by the author, unless otherwise credited.
Edited by: Aunt Xiong, Xiaodan