CATIE highlighted in Fresh Cup: coffee seeds safeguarding the future of cultivation

• Fresh Cup magazine highlights the importance of CATIE in coffee genetic conservation, key to facing climate challenges.

January 17, 2024. CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) takes center stage in Fresh Cup magazine, emphasizing CATIE's crucial role in coffee genetic conservation. The publication titled Good Genes: Genetic Diversity And The Future of Coffee underscores the significance of gene banks, especially CATIE's, in preserving coffee varieties in the context of climate change.

CATIE, situated in Turrialba, Costa Rica, houses a gene bank safeguarding seeds of nearly 2,000 coffee varieties. Amid growing concerns about coffee cultivation sustainability due to climate change, these gene banks are vital, providing source material for researchers to potentially create coffee varieties for the future.

The magazine highlights the initiative led by CATIE and other organizations to preserve the genetic diversity of coffee. This initiative, named the Global Conservation Strategy for Coffee, aims to secure funding and resources to maintain coffee gene banks while ensuring access to these resources.

Coffee, supporting the livelihoods of approximately 125 million people in over 70 countries, faces significant challenges such as climate change and the decline of genetic diversity in the Arabica species, crucial for specialty coffee production. Gene banks, like CATIE's, are presented as the essential "toolbox" to address these issues and ensure coffee's durability.

The Global Conservation Strategy for Coffee also aims to establish a global database facilitating the exchange of information and plant material between gene banks and researchers. CATIE, the only coffee gene bank participating in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, allows researchers worldwide access to its collection.

The article highlights CATIE's importance in conserving and discovering exceptional coffee varieties, such as the renowned Gesha. The story of how Gesha was rediscovered at CATIE and later became an icon in the coffee industry underscores the value of these gene banks for the future of high-quality coffee production.

The Global Conservation Strategy for Coffee, with results to be presented at the Global Specialty Coffee Expo in Seattle, represents a collaborative effort within the coffee industry to address imminent challenges and preserve the genetic diversity underlying the coffee trade.

For more information about the full article in Fresh Cup, click.