Press Release

2022

20/04/2022 | BREEDCAFS | Key results for the coffee of the future

Over four years, the EU H2020 BREEDCAFS project worked across these scientific fronts, in Cameroon, Nicaragua, Vietnam and at several European organizations (roasters, universities and research centres). We take stock of its results, which could change the entire value chain.
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2020

01/09/2021 | A Cirad/Breedcafs project introduces climate-resilient coffee hybrids in Vietnam

An interesting article related to Breedcafs research project and activity in Vietnam has been recently published on the website Comunicaffe.com.
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18/09/2020 | Le Filtre | Pourquoi développer de nouvelles variétés de café ? L’interview de Benoît Bertrand

Benoît Bertrand étudie les caféiers depuis plus de 20 ans, notamment pour le CIRAD, l’organisme français de recherche agronomique et de coopération internationale pour le développement durable des régions tropicales et méditérranéennes, à Montpellier.

06/08/2020 | Perfect Daily Grind BR| Enfrentando Mudanças Climáticas com Variedades Híbridas de Café

Padrões climáticos em mudança, pragas e doenças, desmatamento e aumento da temperatura são apenas alguns dos fatores ambientais que ameaçam a produção mundial de café. Estima-se que, até 2050, possamos perder até 40% da terra cultivável do café – expondo a indústria cafeeira de hoje a um desafio sem precedentes.

15/07/2020 | Perfect Daily Grind ES | Enfrentando el Cambio Climático Con Variedades Híbridas de Café

Los patrones climáticos cambiantes, las plagas y enfermedades, la deforestación y el aumento de las temperaturas son solamente algunos de los factores ambientales que amenazan la producción mundial de café. Se estima que para 2050 podríamos perder hasta el 40% de la tierra agrícola apta para el café, exponiendo la industria actual a desafíos nunca antes vistos.

11/07/2020 | coffeetea.ru | Гибридные сорта помогут индустрии кофе справиться с последствиями изменения климата

Представители CIRAD, французской организации сельскохозяйственных исследований и международного сотрудничества, работающие в рамках проекта BREEDCAFS, рассказали о разработке новых стратегий разведения кофе, создающих сорта, более устойчивые к воздействию окружающей среды, изменениям климата, и более приспособленные к условиям агролесоводства.

09/07/2020 | gafei.com

变化的天气模式，病虫害，森林砍伐和气温上升只是威胁全球咖啡生产的一些环境因素。据估计，到2050年，我们可能会损失多达40％的可耕地用于种植咖啡，这使当今的咖啡行业面临前所未有的挑战。

09/07/2020 | comunicaffe.com| Breedcafs Project: Combating climate change impact with hybrid coffee varieties

Changing weather patterns, pests and diseases, deforestation, and rising temperatures are just some of the environmental factors threatening worldwide coffee production. It’s estimated that by 2050, we may lose as much as 40% of the cultivable land for coffee – exposing today’s coffee industry to an unprecedented challenge.

08/07/2020 | Perfect Daily Grind EN| Combating Climate Change’s Impact With Hybrid Coffee Varieties

18/06/2020 | blog.tchibo.com/ | Was hat Kaffee mit dem Mond zu tun?

Ich bin Gerhard Bytof und bei Tchibo normalerweise für die Kaffeewissenschaft zuständig. Jetzt fragen Sie sich gewiss, was hat der Mond bitteschön mit Kaffee zu tun? Ich habe mir gedacht, das nehme ich heute mal als Frage des Tages, und zwar aus gutem Anlass. Denn die Kraft des Mondes äußert sich nicht nur in den Gezeiten – dazu später mehr.

25/06/2020 | Daily Coffee News | CIRAD and Craig Holt Given CQI’s 2020 Leadership Medals of Merit

The Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) has announced that the French agricultural research organization CIRAD and Atlas Coffee Importers Founder Craig Holt are the recipients of the group’s 2020 Leadership Medals of Merit.

19/06/2020 | La Stampa | Il caffè arabica è minacciato dal cambiamento climatico.

Può essere danneggiato facilmente dal gelo, un pericolo per il sud del Brasile, tra i maggiori produttori di arabica. L’attuale pandemia purtroppo non aiuta. Il Covid-19 inciderà sul settore del caffè.

13/03/2020 | Daily Coffee News | A Single ‘Super Parent’ Plant Birthed All of Arabica, Research Finds

When one coffee plant loves another coffee plant…

Research first made available this morning has given that age-old story a whole lot more context, at least in the coffee world.

05/02/2020 | Daily Coffee News | Moonlight Is Messing with the Circadian Rhythm of Coffee Plants

Somewhere on a spectrum that includes gravitational pull on ocean tides and werewolf transformations, it seems coffee plants are oddly affected by the lunar cycle, too.

First-of-its-kind research from the French agricultural nonprofit CIRAD — which does tons of interesting work in the coffee sector — has found that moonlight has the ability to disrupt the circadian clock of coffee plants. In other words, the moon is messing up coffee’s sleep.

2019

20/12/2019 | Daily Coffee News | CIRAD Says Potentially Revolutionary F1 Arabica Hybrid Starmaya is Now in Seed Form

Describing it as a “godsend” and a “minor revolution for the industry,” the nonprofit agricultural research and development organization CIRAD says it has developed the first F1 hybrid coffee seeds (beans) that could be used for widespread commercial cultivation.

24/09/2019 | Daily Coffee News | Montpellier : Hervé Étienne veut créer un café résistant au changement climatique

Chercheur au Cirad, le Montpelliérain ambitionne de créer une graine de café résistante aux intempéries et offrant aux cultivateurs une variété rentable.

04/03/2019 | BBC | How do you bring a forest back to life?

A global project called Breedcafs is studying how trees behave in coffee farms, hoping to find crop varieties that manage to grow under the canopy shade. Coffee grows naturally in such forests, so replicating that in farms is taking the crop back to its roots.

2018

25/12/2018 | Libération | LE CAFÉ BROIT-IL DU NOIR ?

Ah le petit noir du matin… Que ce soit au bistrot du coin, chez soi ou entre collègues au bureau, qui ne sacrifie pas à ce rituel quotidien!

25/12/2018 | Libération | Climat : le café obligé de se cacher de la chaleur

Alors qu’ils devront produire deux fois plus en 2050 pour répondre à la demande, les caféiculteurs souffrent déjà de la hausse des températures.

12/12/2018 | Libération | Trois cultures au défi du changement climatique

Aujourd’hui, le cours de l’arabica est très bas, donc moins rémunérateur. La faute au Brésil, dont la production record tire les prix à la baisse. «On a l’impression d’avoir du café par-dessus la tête et que ça va continuer. Mais à l’avenir, la tasse de café coûtera beaucoup plus cher», avertit Benoît Bertrand.

16/10/2018 | National Public Radio | Coffee Rust Threatens Latin American Crop; 150 Years Ago, It Wiped Out An Empire

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.

05/09/2018 |World Coffee Research | To fertilize, or to spray? The link between nutrition and leaf rust

At low altitude, applying fertilizer was more effective at controlling rust than spraying with fungicide.

27/08/2018 |World Coffee Research | The correlation of shade and rust

Jacques Avelino’s study suggests that there are types of shade that reduce the intensity of coffee leaf rust infections.

23/08/2018 |Daily Coffee News | What is an F1 Hybrid?

One of the most important techniques in coffee breeding is something farmers always have done on their
own: selecting the best plants for a given desirable trait.

20/08/2018 |World Coffee Research | Photo Essey: Farmers’ F1 Hybrids in Guatemala

World Coffee Research and Anacafe provided farmers in rural Yepocapa with seedlings of Marsellesa and Centroamericano varieties in 2016; the first harvests from the plants are expected to begin in a few months.

20/07/2018 |Standard Magazine Issue 11| Tillers of the soil

When you sip a perfect cup of cofee, you probably aren’t thinking of the multitude of genes that had to turn on and of in the right order to ensure that the tree that produced the fruit that produced the beverage you’re drinking had everything it needed to deliver such perfection—but someone was.…

07/07/2018 | SNV |Project BREEDCAFS Nicaragua advances

In Nicaragua a group of 20 women is following a long term training for the reproduction of coffee hybrid and forest plants with the technique of rooted cutting. Currently, this group is in the process of organisational and business strengthening and intends to develop an economic enterprise whose main business will be the reproduction, dissemination and commercialization of hybrids plants to small farmers.

02/03/2018 | University of St. Thomas | THE RACE TO DEVELOP COFFEE THAT CAN SURVIVE CLIMATE CHANGE

What has driven tens of thousands of Salvadorans to leave home, many for the U.S.? El Salvador’s coffee beans suffered a devastating disease five years ago, and now face an even greater existential threat: climate change. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on how researchers there are trying to develop a plant that can adapt to warming global temperatures.

30/01/2018 | Gulf News | Imagine a world without coffee breaks

As climate change and rising temperatures threaten the cultivation of coffee, scientists are looking into ways to minimise the impact on crop production.

24/01/2018 | Worldcrunch | Your Beloved Coffee Is Just Another Endangered Species

A few decades from now, that steaming cup of coffee you enjoy (and rely on) every morning won’t taste the same. Climate change, a multitude of alarming forecasts tell us, is threatening the precious bean, prompting researchers and industrialists alike to work on ways to make the plant more adaptable.

11/01/2018 | Comunicaffe | Breedcafs: a new EUfunded project for a sustainable coffee sector,

To develop a sustainable coffee sector, Europe funds Breedcafs, a four-year multi-partners project launched in June 2017, coordinated by Cirad (France).

2017

27/12/2017 | Le Temps | Comment sauver le goût du café?

Le réchauffement climatique n’épargne par les caféiers. Comment adapter ces arbustes fragiles au changement tout en préservant les arômes de la boisson? La création de nouvelles variétés constitue une partie de la réponse.

22/11/2017 | Horizon Magazine | Forest plantations are a potent blend for coffee production

Climate change is threatening Europe’s coffee supplies, but the impacts could be diluted by planting the crops amongst trees – a technique known as agroforestry, which is also being revived in European farming.

14/11/2017 | Where the Wild Coffee Grows

The Untold Story of Coffee from the Cloud of Ethiopia to your cup

19/10/2017 | The Washington Post | The race to save coffee

CENTROAMERICANO, a new variety of coffee plant, hasn’t sparked the buzz of, say, Starbucks’s latest novelty latte. But it may be the coolest thing in brewing: a tree that can withstand the effects of climate change.

18/10/2017 | Telesur | Coffee Rust Disease Devastating Latin America's Prime Industry

Across Central America, 70% of Arabica plant farms have been hit by the disease, resulting in $3.2 billion in damage and 1.7 million lost jobs.

26/09/2017 | AgroForestry Systems | BREEDCAFS (H2020): Development of new BREEDing strategies for Coffee trees under current and future climates and addressing sustainability issue

14/09/2017 |Franceinter | Le café, un produit en voie de disparition?

Une étude parue lundi dans la prestigieuse revue PNAS montre comment le réchauffement planétaire va probablement affecter l’environnement des caféiers d’Amérique Latine…

19/07/2017 |IMA Coffee | The hybrid vigour phenomenon

World Coffee Research is streamlining an innovative breeding technique that gives the global coffee industry hope for a brighter future.

30/06/2017 |Tours maville |Changement climatique. Le café pourrait-il devenir un produit rare?

«Lorsque l’on détruit les forêts, on crée des déserts. Cela condamne la plante à être cultivée en plein soleil, avec plus d’engrais et de pesticides qui détruisent les sols»

19/06/2017 |La gazette afrique du laboratoire | Breedcafs : un projet de recherche européen pour adapter les variétés de café à l’agroforesterie

L’agroforesterie est une voie d’adaptation de la production caféière au changement climatique, mais peu de variétés lui sont adaptées. Breedcafs, nouveau projet porté par le Cirad et financé par le programme européen H2020, propose de diversifier la gamme variétale destinée à ce mode de production plus durable.

24/05/2017 |Daily Coffee News | New rust resistant hybrid centroamericano scores 90+ at Nicaragua

A new leaf-rust-resistant hybrid called Centroamericano scored 90.5 in the recent 2017 Nicaragua Cup of
Excellence, marking a major win for the development of hybrid types called F1 in coffee.

20/04/2017 |Scidevnet | L’agroforesterie avec de nouvelles variétés de café arabica

La culture du café est au centre d’un projet de recherche que vient de lancer le CIRAD (Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement) en vue de son adaptation à l’agroforesterie pour faire face au changement climatique.

05/04/2017 |Newspress | Breedcafs : un projet de recherche européen pour adapter les variétés de café à l’agroforesterie

05/04/2017 |michielkloppenburg.nl | One hot night on a hotel patio in El Salvador

The day’s marathon of meetings was over and it was already dark outside. I had just ordered a cold Pilsener from the hotel bar and was headed out to the patio to find my colleagues, the renowned coffee breeder Benoit Bertrand and coffee geneticist and World Coffee Research’s Scientific Director Christophe Montagnon.

05/04/2017 |Financial Times | Sustainable coffee: Scientists fear arabica may take banana path

The coffee bean is a bit like the banana. As with the Cavendish, the banana variety found on most of the world’s supermarket shelves, the genetic diversity of the arabica coffee bean, the highest quality bean, is very low.

13/03/2017 |Daily Coffee News | New Starmaya Hybrid Could ‘Reshape the Industry, ’ Says World Coffee Research

A new F1 hybrid coee variety called Starmaya may forever change the coee breeding landscape by dramatically improving producers’ access to higher-yielding, disease-resistant and high-quality seeds, according to a recent announcement from the nonprot World Coffee Research.