Written by Bernie Carr
My regular readers know I value my daily coffee so I have devised various backups for off-grid coffee, including roasting my own beans.
This piece of news caught my eye, so I thought I’d better share it with y’all: a freak cold snap in Brazil damaged a huge portion of their coffee crop. If you’re wondering why unusual weather in Brazil would affect coffee prices, it’s because Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world. Their climate is normally well-suited to the production of coffee beans.
What happened?
The sudden freeze happened on July 20th, according to Reuters. Temperatures dropped to -1.2 Celsius or 29 Fahrenheit, damaging next year’s crop.
“I’ve never seen something like that. We knew it would be cold, we were monitoring, but temperatures suddenly went several degrees down when it was already early morning,” said Mario Alvarenga, a coffee producer with two farms in Minas Gerais, Brazil’s largest producing state.
Farmers shared pictures of their crops, where large black areas were visible in places where they should see dark green spots marking coffee trees.
SOURCE: REUTERS
Coffee prices increased 13%, now at a six and a half year high. According to this ZeroHedge article, around one third of the U.S. annual purchase, around ten million bags (with each bag weighing 132 pounds) of arabica coffee, may have been damaged.
It won’t be long before even more price increases are felt by U.S. consumers. If you are a coffee drinker, now would be a good time to stock up.
My latest e-book is out! Learning to make your own products at home will save you a ton of money, not to mention cut down on waste. Please click the link below.
Bernie Carr is the founder of Apartment Prepper. She has written several books including the best-selling Prepper’s Pocket Guide, Jake and Miller’s Big Adventure, The Penny-Pinching Prepper and How to Prepare for Most Emergencies on a $50 a Month Budget. Bernie’s latest e-book, FRUGAL DIY has just been released on Amazon. Her work appears in sites such as the Allstate Blog and Clark.com, as well as print magazines such as Backwoods Survival Guide and Prepper Survival Guide. She has been featured in national publications such as Fox Business and Popular Mechanics. Learn more about Bernie here.
