JEMBER, Indonesia — In good weather, Saturi’s coffee field here on a hillside on the east of Indonesia’s Java Island will produce around 2.5 metric tons of coffee beans over the course of a season. This year, he expects to get less than a ton. “The weather has meant there have been a lot of fires,” Saturi told Mongabay Indonesia at his home in Jember district in December. Saturi’s story reflects the plight of farmers more broadly in the world’s fourth-largest coffee-producing nation, where the weather has lurched from extreme rainfall caused by a La Niña climate pattern that lasted from 2020-2022, to a punishing drought sparked last year by El Niño. This year’s coffee harvest in Indonesia is forecast to be the lowest in more than a decade. Jember farmers blame El Niño, in which above-average temperatures in the Pacific produce dangerously dry weather over Southeast Asia. Torrential rain over a long period can easily drown coffee flowers before they produce beans, while sustained heat and a deficit of water typically stunt coffee flowers and dry up the tree’s leaves. Indonesia recorded coffee output of almost 12 million 60-kilogram sacks during the season that spans 2022 and 2023, but total production in the current year is expected to plummet to less than 10 million as El Niño induces feverish temperatures across low-lying coffee areas. Saturi examining his coffee plants in Jember. Image by Moh Tamimi/ Mongabay Indonesia. Extreme weather has brought challenges to a diverse basket of food crops…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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