A major breakthrough has happened at Nestle. The global giant's plant scientists have discovered a new generation of disease resistant, low carbon coffee varieties by doing the classical non-GMO breeding and by utilizing the natural biodiversity of the plant.
What’s special about these new coffee varieties
These new Robusta varieties have the capacity to give upto 50% higher yields per tree with the same amount of energy and fertilizers. This leads to about 30% decrease in carbon dioxide equivalent footprint of the green beans.
Green coffee beans account for 40-80% of the carbon emissions from one cup of coffee. These pathbreaking new varieties promise to drastically cut down the carbon footprint linked to coffee consumption.
One of these new varieties of Robusta coffee has undergone a successful trial and farmers across Central America are already growing this coffee leading to rise in coffee plantation.
Apart from this, Nestle is busy developing high-yielding new Arabica coffee varieties that show higher resistance to coffee leaf rust, which is a devastating disease found in coffee plantations in America. This variety, too, promises a higher yield at the same fertilizer inputs.
Plant scientists of Nestle have also developed a new coffee variety that is resistant to drought. The variety is now under trial in Central America. It provides upto 50% higher yield per plant under severe to moderate water stress. This is revolutionary for farmers who live in drought-prone areas and regions undergoing massive climate change.
The Nestle Research Center for Plant Sciences in Tours, France, has shown the path towards the development of these varieties.
The process of developing new varieties
Scientists at Nestle constantly endeavor to develop improved varieties of coffee. These are then tested on the experimental farms of the company in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Thereafter, the new plantlets are propagated and then distributed to farmers across the globe through the company's sustainable sourcing programs and partnerships with local cooperatives and agricultural institutes.
The objective is to enable farmers to produce excellent coffee plants. Ultimately, coffee lovers should enjoy the best coffee in their cups without feeling guilty of leaving a huge carbon footprint with every cup they gulp.
