18 Case Study #2 – Environment
Case study #2 – The Land is Sick
Disclaimer: This is a fictitious scenario created for the purposes of microbiome, health, disease, and environmental education. Any names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Part I – Background and Problem
Coffee production in South America has drastically decreased in the 2021-23 growing seasons. Specifically, the major farms in Columbia and Brazil which collectively contribute over half of each countries coffee (both specialty and commercial) production, have had severe crop failures. As a result, the price of a cup of coffee has noticeably increased, putting financial strain on suppliers and businesses.
Interestingly, the few years prior to this decline, coffee production was at an all-time high, with more coffee in the market than demanded. This dropped the price of coffee, and in many cases original farmers were not fairly compensated.
The International Coffee Organization (ICO) has tasked a team of researchers to identify potential problems to South American coffee plant failure and provide quick and efficient resolution.
Article 1 – The Bacterial Microbiome of Meloidogyne-Based Disease Complex in Coffee and Tomato
Video 1 – The biggest threats to the coffee industry
Video 2 – #1 Specialty coffee and the price crisis | Producer Crossover 2019
Questions:
- As a scientific researcher, what are some factors you would take into consideration when addressing this problem?
- What type of environmental microbiomes could be implicated in coffee plant crop failure and why?
- Should other coffee farms in countries besides those in South America be worried about similar failure in their crops? Why or why not?
Attributions:
- Figure 1 – Coffee exports by country 2019-20 by Dylan Parks. Data source: International Coffee Organization
- Figure 2 – A world map of countries by coffee production, 2019 by Cbahrs licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
- Article 1 – The Bacterial Microbiome of Meloidogyne-Based Disease Complex in Coffee and Tomato by Lamelas et al., 2020 licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).
- Article 2 – A review of three major fungal diseases of Coffea Arabica L. in the rainforests of Ethiopia and progress in breeding for resistance in Kenya by Hindorf and Omondi, 2011 licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
- Article 3 – Structure and Dynamics of the Gut Bacterial Community Across the Developmental Stages of the Coffee Berry Borer, Hypothenemus hampei by Mejía-Alvarado et al., 2021 licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).
- Video 1 – The biggest threats to the coffee industry by Startup to Storefront licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (reuse allowed)
- Video 2 – #1 Specialty coffee and the price crisis | Producer Crossover 2019 by Coffee