Climate change does not impact on Coffea arabica yield in Brazil

Background: Brazil is the largest producer of coffee in the world. Studies on climate change estimate large impacts on the production of Coffea arabica (C. arabica). In this context, it is necessary to know the quantitative production values to provide evidence for policy makers to target the prompt answer.

Results: Using data from 18 municipalities located in five Brazilian states that produce more coffee in Brazil, in an unprecedented way, in this work it is shown that although the minimum temperature is the most important climatic variable for the production, its effect, although positive, and its degree of explanation, were technically too small to explain the volume of production in Brazilian conditions. According to the model of non-stationary time series ARIMA (1, 1, 0) coffee production in the future may reach almost four million tons, and the productivity almost 2500 kg ha^-1 on average, with the advancement of technology as the main factor that should promote simultaneous increases in production and productivity. However, despite natural climate variations, which make it the most responsible for the variability of annual coffee production, the producer must increase the use of the technologies to support the Brazilian coffee agribusiness.

Conclusions: The results of this study reveal that coffee production in Brazil is due much more to productivity than to the minimum ambient temperature change over the long term; despite this, the climate variable should be considered the most influential on the production and productivity of coffee. © 2017 Embrapa. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry.