For the third year in a row, total coffee production in Brazil is increasing. This year-over-year-over-year growth is somewhat rare for the worldโ€™s largest coffee producer, happening only seven times the 144-year recorded history of Brazilian coffee production, according to Reuters. Expert expect 2025 to increase as well, and if it does, it will only be the second time in history.

The reasons for the increase arenโ€™t entirely new nor are they as positive as the result would imply. What they do provide, though, is a small encapsulation of what Brazilian producers have had to endure over the last few years, and in many ways, speak to many of the biggest issues coffee producers the world over are facing.

As reported by Reuters, Arabica production goes in biennial cycles: an increase in one year followed by a decrease. The hope is that it is two steps forward one step back and that the trend continues generally upward. One major factor that disrupted this cycle was extreme, unpredictable weather in 2020 and 2021. Significant droughts and unexpected frost crippled overall production. Many of these extreme weather phenomena can be chalked up to climate change. As the average temperature increases, the weather grows more severe and unpredictable, leaving farmers to suffer the brunt of its effects on crop production.

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Many producers are choosing to switch to robusta to deal with these effects. Used more for instant coffee, robusta doesnโ€™t experience the same biennial cycle, providing additional stability to year-over-year production. When compared to Arabica, robusta is more resilient and better equipped to grow in warmer conditions and generally yields more.

This aligns with the upward trend of robusta production globally. Whereas Arabica historically comprised around 70% of all coffee produced, it has been dropping steadily and makes up less than 55%.

One positive factor contributing to the uptick, per Reuters, is the improvement in farming techniques, particularly in dealing with crops post-frost. Pruning and expanded irrigation tactics have been implemented to better deal with dry weather, with robusta farms being the larger recipient of the changes.

The result is nonetheless positive, for Brazil at least. But the downstream effects will be felt by producers everywhere. As Brazil goes, so goes the C-market price. The world’s largest coffee producers hold significant sway over the value of the commodity globally, and events that occur in the South American country will cause the speculative price to fluctuate wildly in New York and global trading hubs. And the trend has been, when Brazil’s overall coffee production goes up, the C-market price goes down. Thus are the meritocracy-less and immoral whims of supply-and-demand economics when dictated by suits thousands of miles from production.

Crop switching for survival and speculative pricing is the world that farmers have to navigate. Climate change and its harmful consequences aren’t theoretically going to happen sometime in the future, it’s something we’ve been experiencing for years.

Zac Cadwaladerย is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.ย Read more Zac Cadwaladerย on Sprudge.