Coffee Rust Threatens Latin American Crop; 150 Years Ago, It Wiped Out An Empire
The fungus, which has no cure, is destroying harvests in Latin America. In the 1800s, it devastated Sri Lanka's powerhouse coffee industry. And scientists say it's only a question of time.
Five years ago, Finca El Valle, a small, family-run coffee farm south of Antigua, Guatemala, was producing 140,000 pounds of superior-quality Arabica for a select handful of America's premier specialty-coffee roasters.
An outbreak of coffee leaf rust, caused by the fungus Hemileia vastatrix, hit the celebrated coffee-producing region in 2012, and by 2014 it had infected the entire farm. That year El Valle harvested a meager 28,000 pounds of coffee, an 80 percent drop. The next harvests were even smaller. With the lowest coffee prices in a dozen years, reviving the farm has been deeply challenging.
"We are in the
