In most parts of the Global South where coffee is produced, the impacts of climate change are being felt through changes in water supplies, resulting from increased rainfall variability. Successive droughts are impacting crop yields in a varied list of countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, India, and Indonesia. Professor Dr. Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudhi of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and University of KwaZulu-Natal’s School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, says an estimated 70 per cent of land under coffee production belongs to smallholder farmers in climate change hotspots with inherently low adaptive capacity. … Ben Faber, an advisor at the University of California Cooperative Extension, specialises in soils, water and subtropical crops, especially those along the subtropical California coast with its Mediterranean climate of winter rain and summer drought. He says water salinity is an obvious sign of water stress.

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