The Tropics Foundation

and the importance of the international coffee treasure at CATIE for the industry's future

Written by Katie Modic

The town of Boquete, Panama, where the Peterson coffee farm, Hacienda Esmeralda, is located

BOQUETE, Panamá — To reach the Peterson family's farm, you have to drive along miles of narrow country roads in the mountains of southern Panama, up and down steep slopes lined with row after row of dark green coffee plants.

Some of those slopes, especially the ones in the higher altitudes, are considered the “richest” hillsides in the business.

“When it comes to quality coffee, it needs to have an unforgettable flavor," says Price Peterson, who has been growing and harvesting coffee here since 1967. The wet, cold mountain air, he explains, is perfect for creating the aromatics and taste profiles that the multi-billion dollar coffee industry has come to crave.

High up on the southern slope on the Jaramillo Mountain, under the shade of 50 foot tall trees, one of the most expensive coffee varieties to go to market was first harvested by Price and his family in 2004.

Price Peterson talks to CATIE researcher, William Solano, at Haciende Esmeralda (Photo Credit: L.M. Salazar / Crop Trust)

“It was a big clumsy tree, hard to work with , and didn’t have very high yield” Price recalls of the first Geisha plants that came to the region in the 1960s. In an effort to grow Panama’s coffee export business, the Panamanian government commissioned Pachi Serracin to collect samples of diverse plant varieties from around the world and bring them back to Panama to give to coffee farmers. Geisha was among the plants he selected.

The Geisha variety originated in Ethiopia, however Pachi had only to travel as far as the neighboring country of Costa Rica to retrieve his seeds. Nestled into Caribbean sloping highlands in the province of Cartago lies the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE). CATIE is one of the most accomplished higher education and research institutions in Latin America and also happens to house one of the most extensive coffee collections in the world.

A small plot of CATIE’s International Coffee Collection that conserves the biodiversity of the species with plants from around the world (Photo Credit: CATIE)

CATIE’s International Coffee Collection conserves 12 different species of coffee, 91% of the collection being focused on Coffee Arabica. Located in Turrialba, Costa Rica, on twelve hectares of land, CATIE has some 1,974 accessions from Ethiopia, Yemen, Kenya, India, Tanzania, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, and many other countries. It is the most important genebank for Arabica coffee in the Western Hemisphere. All coffee rust-resistant varieties in Central America can be traced back to CATIE.

CATIE is also the only Origin Coffee genebank world wide that is outside of the African continent and also open to the public. CATIE's collections are part of the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, and are therefore available to users internationally. Tens of thousands of producers like Pachi and Price have relied on CATIE’s open share policy to diversify their own crops and keep their farms productive.

“When Pachi got back to Panama, he spread the new varieties around to planters in town and people planted them, but all of them, for some reason or another, were rapidly abandoned“ reflects Price. Although neglected, many of those original plants survived in quilt-work patches around the Boquete region.

In 1997, Price’s family expanded their hacienda and bought new land on the Jaramillo mountainside, where there was a slope that was cold, and covered in Geisha variety from Pachi’s earlier seeding. “It was 2004 when we first made our harvest of this strange, big plant called Geisha”, shares Price.

His son Daniel, who had recently come back to join the farm, was interested in differentiating the flavors amongst the varieties they were harvesting that year. “He went all over the farm and brought back samples from here and samples from there, and we cupped it.”

Price Peterson’s son and daughter and staff cupping coffee to differentiate flavours (Photo Credit: L.M. Salazar / Crop Trust)

Coffee cupping is a sensory evaluation practice with a specific protocol that is used to assess the fragrance, aroma, and taste profiles of coffees, as well as to identify any defects that may be present. It gained popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s when the members of the industry (farmers, exporters, importers, roasters, and some retail cafes) started to understand that coffee variety, origin, processing, roast profile and brewing all affected the final taste.

“When we cupped that year, it was mostly the same flavors we always tasted, a real Central American flavor…but then there was this one coffee that was just weird,” shared Price. “I thought we had made a mistake somehow. To me it was like a fruity tea. The kids, who were excellent coffee cuppers, were baffled. They said, Dad, this is really different. The thing was, we didn’t know if it was different good or different bad.”

As fortune would have it, right around this same time, coffee was growing competitive. The Best of Panama and Cup of Excellence both appeared in the late 1990s. The Cup of Excellence was the first global internet auction platform for award-winning coffees, although never used in Panama. These auctions represented a turning point for the coffee industry in general, and specialty coffee in particular. They allowed farmers to realize a greater financial price for their coffees, contributing to the rise of specialty coffee and global recognition of coffee farmers.

When Price and his kids entered their “weird” tasting Geisha variety, it changed the world of coffee forever. The idea of elite coffee varieties really appeared in 2004, after Price’s Panamanian Geisha sold at auction for an unprecedented $21 a pound!

Good Fortune for All

It’s rare that coffee farmers strike it rich. According to the Coffee Guide’s 4th edition Coffee Report, there are 12.5 million coffee farms worldwide, and about 95% of these are smaller than 5 hectares and considered ‘smallholder’. These are predominantly located in 20 countries where the climate and soil are suitable for growing coffee. Small producers are the backbone of this giant global industry and at least 5.5 million live below the international poverty line of $3.20 a day.

Coffee pickers weighing harvested coffee at Hacienda La Esmeralda (Photo Credit: L.M. Salazar / Crop Trust)

Therefore, as soon as Price’s family realized how Geisha would enable economic growth on their farm, they implemented a policy to ensure the good fortune would “trickle down” to their workers.

At the Peterson farm, Geisha coffee pickers receive three times the average price paid for harvesting. In addition to that, in June, all harvesters receive a special bonus. They’ve built a nursery, where harvesters’ children, as well as mothers with infants, are taken care of while their parents or spouses are picking coffee. They also supply packages of rice and beans, or rice and sardines to every adult in the workers’ family. Children of the workers’ family with outstanding grades are entitled to a scholarship for both elementary and secondary school as well as a full scholarship for college education.

“This has to trickle down to the workers”, Price shared. It is a policy they’ve worked with ever since.

After Geisha

After Geisha took the world by surprise in 2004, Price immediately thought, “someday, somebody will find something better than Geisha, let it be us!” This brought Price back to the genetic treasures of CATIE in hopes of discovering something new. “So, that’s when we went to CATIE and said we’d like to get 20 or 30 varieties from Ethiopia, not hybrids, just straight Ethiopian. We started out with 20 or 30 and we now have 400 varieties!”

The quest for the next best cup taught Price a few important lessons. He spent over 2 years working with researchers at CATIE to uncover the possible molecular variables responsible for flavor, quality and superior taste. But at the end of the day, he realized, the molecular make up of the plant is less important for flavor than many of the other factors that influence taste. “The cup of coffee is so much a product of the roasters art, that what you have in the genetics of the coffee is totally transformed during the roasting.”

Researchers at CATIE use vegetative propagation in their laboratories to duplicate and regenerate plants (Photo Credit: CATIE)

Price also believes that taste is the ticket to freedom, especially for small coffee producers. “The only way the smaller coffee producer will get more money is if they can grow something that just really tastes different, really tastes good”, he shares. And once you have it, it speaks for itself! “One of the things we discovered was that the coffee community is so small that word of mouth does everything.”

Challenges For the Future

The 2019 International Institute for Sustainable Development Global Market Report states that coffee is one of the most important tropical commodities in the world. It provides economic benefits at each step of the global value chain that link growers to consumers. The coffee industry contributes to the economies of both exporting and importing countries. It is one of the most traded agricultural commodities in the world. In 2017 alone, 70% of total coffee production was exported, worth $19 billion. That same year, the sector had a retail market value of $83 billion, providing jobs for 125 million people. As a beverage, it is a favorite for an ever growing number of consumers around the globe.

Of the 125 coffee species in the world, global coffee production is based on only two – Arabica and Canephora – and we are using just a few varieties of each. The global multi-billion dollar coffee industry is thus resting on a perilously narrow genetic base. A fast spreading disease for which there is no resistance in any of these varieties could wipe out coffee production entirely. What’s more, Arabica Coffee – which accounts for about 60% of total coffee production – is extremely climate sensitive. According to the Climate Institute, 75% of the land dedicated to growing it will become unsuitable for coffee production within the next 50 years due to changes in temperature and rainfall.

In response, nonprofits like the Crop Trust, which is among the few international organizations in the world whose sole task is to make sure we conserve the diversity of our most important crops, has partnered with World Coffee Research, a non-profit research and development organization funded by the coffee industry, to carry out a comprehensive, global study to better understand the state of coffee diversity.

The results show that all coffee diversity on the planet is conserved in only four global locations. These four genebanks have been dubbed “The Origin Collections” and all are based in Africa (Cote d’Ivoire, Madagascar and Ethiopia) with the exception of one, the treasured collection located at CATIE in Costa Rica. Aside from being the only genebank located in the Western Hemisphere, CATIE’s collection is also the only one that is open to the public and shares its materials internationally. That is why the Crop Trust and World Coffee Research have joined forces with CATIE in order to begin the Coffee Forever Campaign which will raise funds to ensure collections like CATIE’s remain strong and healthy far into the future.

The unfortunate current reality is, CATIE’s trees are dying. Many are over 60 years old and the entire collection requires replanting. Aside from aging, the area where the collection is located suffers from poor drainage. Some of the trees are dying due to over saturation. Furthermore, as the climate changes, so do pests and diseases. For example, during the last two years, the incidence of coffee leaf rust has increased, resulting in the loss of more trees. After coffee leaf rust, the second most devastating disease in the Americas is the American Leaf Spot (Mycena citricolor; Ojo de gallo). There is no resistance to this and in some areas of Latin America, this is becoming even more devastating than leaf rust.

What Needs To Be Done To Save Coffee?

CATIE, in partnership with The Crop Trust and World Coffee Research, has very clearly laid out a multi-phased strategy to salvage their collection.

The first step, which has already been completed, was to rescue the “Critically Endangered” and “Endangered” accessions. To do this, they rationalized the collection to focus on conservation of unique material (wild accessions and cultivated old varieties), minimizing undesired duplication. In addition, at CATIE’s research laboratories, they performed a molecular characterization of all of the accessions in the collections.

Currently, the team is working on relocating the collection to an alternative location on the farm with better drainage that is more suitable for Coffee Arabica. This process includes preparing the new site, grafting plants, relocating the new plants, and ensuring enough human and financial resources to maintain two collections until the new collection is 100% established. This takes roughly 48 months and has a total price tag of around $540k. The Crop Trust has secured approximately $200k for the first phase and 300 accessions have already been identified and the propagation process started. In the meantime, the CATIE team is also planning a security duplication of the rationalized collection through cryopreservation of the seeds at the USDA laboratories in Beltsville, USA. A final duplication in the field is being planned at an altitude higher than +1,500 meters above sea level in order to carry out evaluations in land with different agro climatic characteristics than the current collection locations in Turrialba.

Once the re-establishment and duplication are complete, the CATIE team will enhance the use of collections for breeding for coffee leaf rust resistance, drought tolerance, heat adaptation, and cup quality, with comprehensive accession-level information sharing by CATIE and users on an international platform.

The overall price tag for this 5-year effort is just over $1M of which $820k is still being raised.

Not unlike Price and his family discovering Geisha, an increase in economic resources opens opportunities for the conscious-minded to do what’s right. Geisha allowed the Petersons to implement their trickle down policy and ensure their workers received fair compensation. In the case of CATIE, once financial resources are secured, it can replant its collection and continue to steward to the millions of farmers throughout the world who depend on the public genebank to diversify their fields and continue to provide the world with its favorite morning cup.

“I know that Panama is not the coffee capital of the world,” says Price, “but it's interesting to see what's going on here. There's so much innovation going on. People are trying to break out of the commodity situation. If they could just focus on different tasting, better tasting coffees”, he suggests. And as Price knows from first hand experience, having access to CATIE’s diverse treasure trove of plants to choose from will be key.

Love your morning cup and want to secure coffee forever?

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Donate to save Coffee!

Visit the famous CATIE Coffee Collection and Research Laboratories on your next trip to Costa Rica.

Visit CATIE’s Coffee Collection

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Stay Informed!

Donate to The Crop Trust’s Coffee Forever Campaign and positively influence all four of the world’s coffee collections.

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About CATIE

CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) is an academic center for innovation and sustainable development that solves issues related to agriculture, management, conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Our area of influence, by mandate, is the Latin American and Caribbean region. For 50 years, CATIE has combined education, research and outreach to promote Inclusive Green Development that leads to increased human well-being and reduced rural poverty.

About The Tropics Foundation

The Tropics Foundation is an Atlanta-based 501c3 nonprofit organization that exists to stimulate and promote inclusive sustainable development and conservation in the American Tropics. The Tropics Foundation provides resources and opportunities to support higher education, research, and outreach.

About the Crop Trust

The Crop Trust is an international organization working to conserve crop diversity and thus protect global food and nutrition security. At the core of Crop Trust is an endowment fund dedicated to providing guaranteed long-term financial support to key genebanks worldwide. The Crop Trust supports the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and coordinates large-scale projects worldwide to secure crop diversity and make it available for use, globally forever and for the benefit of everyone. The Crop Trust is recognized as an essential element of the funding strategy of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Learn more at www.croptrust.org.

Award-winning coffee producer Price Peterson reflects on the early years of Geisha