The Decline of a Coffee Giant: El Salvador's Struggle
In the mid-1970s, El Salvador stood as one of the world's foremost coffee producers, with harvests soaring above 5 million quintales, a unit equivalent to approximately 46 kilograms. Today, the nation's production barely scrapes 1 million quintales, marking a dramatic collapse that extends far beyond mere market fluctuations. This steep decline reflects decades of land restructuring, intensifying climate shocks, and widespread rural migration, which have collectively hollowed out the sector and reshaped both livelihoods and landscapes across Central America.
A Family's Fight Against Unpredictable Weather
On a steep hillside in western El Salvador, Oscar Leiva observes rainfall in December, a month that traditionally signaled the start of the dry season. During this harvest cycle, flowering arrived prematurely and then stalled, followed by a devastating heatwave. The remaining crop is uneven, lower in quality, and more costly to produce than in previous years. For Leiva and his family, coffee has never been just a crop; it is a way of life. His mother, Marina Marinero, recalls when rains adhered to a predictable schedule, allowing harvests to be planned months in advance. Now, the calendar offers no certainty, turning decisions about pruning, fertilizing, and hiring labor into educated guesses, each carrying a financial burden the family can scarcely afford.
The Climate Crisis: An Existential Threat to Coffee Producers
As the climate crisis deepens, Latin America's coffee producers—from the rugged hillsides of Central America to the expansive forests of Brazil and the Andean slopes of Colombia—confront an existential threat. While global markets project an image of abundance, small farmers grapple with rising costs, erratic weather patterns, and a shrinking workforce, leading many to question the viability of coffee farming. A recent analysis by Climate Central reveals that the world's five largest coffee producers—Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Ethiopia, and Indonesia—now endure an average of 57 additional days of damaging heat annually. In Brazil, the leading producer, this figure jumps to 70 extra hot days each year.
Celso Vegro, an agronomist and researcher at São Paulo's state agriculture agency, explains that high temperatures place coffee plants under severe stress, diminishing their productive potential. This phenomenon affects plantations worldwide, as most are situated within similar latitudes. Vegro notes that global coffee production has failed to meet expectations since 2021, with countries unable to keep pace with growing demand. This shortfall has depleted global stocks and driven prices higher, though a temporary reprieve is expected as Brazil's harvest replenishes supplies, albeit without addressing underlying climate conditions.
Market Volatility and Social Crisis
Market signals exacerbate the plight of small farmers. After a record rally earlier in 2025, Arabica bean prices are anticipated to plummet as production rebounds in Colombia, Brazil, and other major exporters. Rabobank forecasts that growing global surpluses over the next two seasons could push prices sharply lower, even as farmers in climate-vulnerable regions face escalating costs. Cecibel Romero, a researcher specializing in coffee production, argues that the sector faces overlapping crises beyond climate alone. "There is a real climate crisis, but there is also a social crisis," she asserts, highlighting how rising temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, and diseases like coffee rust have exposed longstanding weaknesses in traditional production methods.
Romero contends that the prevailing production model prioritized yields and short-term solutions over soil health, shade management, and resilience. Following significant rust outbreaks in the early 2010s, many producers replanted with new varieties promising resistance but often delivering inferior quality and limited durability. "Those decisions ended up hitting the system again a few years later," she remarks. As coffee's economic significance waned in El Salvador, institutional support dwindled, public services weakened, renovation programs fragmented, and access to affordable credit narrowed, leaving producers to navigate climate risk, disease outbreaks, and market volatility largely unaided.
Honduras: Similar Pressures in Central America's Largest Producer
In Honduras, Central America's largest coffee producer, similar pressures persist despite higher national output. Juan Luis Hernández, a forest engineer with experience in environmental projects at the Honduran Coffee Institute, states that the climate crisis has squeezed the margin for error. "Producers are being asked to adapt," he says, "but adaptation has a cost." Managing shade, restoring soil, protecting water sources, and monitoring disease require substantial investment, time, and labor—resources that are unevenly distributed among farmers.
Gerardo Vásquez, a small coffee producer in Copán, manages an 8-hectare family farm while advising others. Even with training from the Honduran Coffee Institute and expertise in soil analysis, variety selection, and agroforestry systems, Vásquez admits survival is far from guaranteed. Establishing a single manzana (about 0.7 hectares) of coffee now costs approximately 200,000 lempiras (around £5,600) spread over three years. Fertilizer prices have surged since the pandemic, and labor shortages have driven harvest wages higher. "When you add everything up," Vásquez explains, "harvest, processing, transport, you spend more than 3,000 lempiras (£83) just to get one quintal of parchment coffee."
Constant rain complicates drying processes, forcing some farmers to sell cherries directly from the field at reduced prices or rely on intermediaries for cash advances, which limits their ability to negotiate better terms later. Vásquez estimates that farms below 1,000 meters altitude are increasingly vulnerable to heat stress, pests, and disease, with yields declining as costs rise, making production increasingly unsustainable.
Adaptation Efforts and Industry Challenges
Some farms, however, have managed to buy time through adaptation. Carlos Guerra, co-owner of Café San Rafael in Honduras, observes that flowering is now staggered, extending harvests later into the year and increasing costs while reducing returns. Labor has become one of the most acute pressures, as coffee farming is physically demanding, poorly paid, and increasingly unstable, driving younger generations away from rural areas. "Fifteen or 20 years ago, during the coffee boom, prices were good and all the conditions existed that don't exist any more," Guerra recalls. "Back then, people were eager to work. Now, if you are lucky, you find 20 or 30 workers."
Climate pressure is also pushing coffee cultivation to higher altitudes. Forty years ago, coffee struggled above 1,000 meters; today, producers are planting higher each decade to escape warming temperatures and aggressive diseases like rust. Adaptation strategies include experimenting with shade and soil restoration, though these often come with trade-offs, such as lower yields. "If you move from producing 40 quintales per manzana to five or 10 under shade," Carlos Guerra frames the dilemma, "you have to ask yourself if you accept lower income, or if you intensify production with chemicals."
At Café San Rafael, adaptation is treated as a daily concern, involving shade management, soil protection, and adjusted harvest timing. Post-harvest, tighter control over fermentation and drying helps compensate for uneven cherry quality, while the on-site roastery allows the operation to absorb market fluctuations. Emeric Seguin, director of sourcing and sustainability at Fantôme, a Quebec-based specialty coffee roaster, notes widespread distrust in the industry. "Everyone feels as if they are the one being scammed," he says, highlighting how farmers feel undervalued, buyers worry about inconsistency, and cooperatives are caught in between.
Specialty Coffee and Future Prospects
Specialty coffee is often touted as a solution, offering higher prices and closer relationships, but access remains uneven due to certification costs, processing infrastructure, and export logistics. Seguin criticizes the industry's narrow definition of quality, stating, "Quality is treated as something objective, but it is really a cultural agreement decided in tasting rooms, not on farms." Initiatives like Renacer, a coffee production school in El Salvador led by agronomists and producers, promote ecological practices focused on soil health, shade restoration, and long-term stability rather than maximum yields.
Sigfredo Corado, a lead agronomist at Renacer, emphasizes that the goal is not to eliminate risk but to reduce extremes. "You may not harvest 50 quintales one year, but you also will not fall to 10 the next," he explains. However, Rabobank predicts that growing global surpluses could further lower prices, rendering coffee less viable for smallholders. As the sector weakens, land once dedicated to shaded coffee is increasingly converted to sugarcane or sold for real estate development.
Back on his hillside plot, Oscar Leiva surveys the losses, knowing that planning for the next cycle feels both premature and unavoidable. Each season now demands decisions made without reliable forecasts. Coffee is adapting across Central America, but the pressing question remains: who can afford to adapt, and who will be left behind in this escalating crisis?
