Coffee and Climate Change

Published in The New York Times – Heat Damages Colombia Coffee, Raising Prices

Luis Garzón on his coffee farm

Timbío, Cauca – Luis Garzón (80) a coffee farmer in the Cauca region of Colombia has experienced deceased coffee yields and lower quality because of rising temperatures and more intense and unpredictable rains in the region. Colombia is known for its excellent Arabica coffee variety but growers are increasingly changing to the more rust resistant Castillo variety, which better resists the pests and fungi whose spread has been encouraged by the warmer and damper climate, party brought on by global warming.

see story: The New York Times

Here are the pictures that I took on two different days for The New York Times. After travelling and delaying, and waiting for interviews to end I scraped around the farm for images until Luis was free. i got 15 minutes with him, and because I’m kind of too self-critical/negative, I was sure I really didn’t do anything decent. I mentioned it to the very decent folk on the pic desk, and they told me to go photograph another day, which I did on the other side of the country in Fredonia, Antioquia.