Andrea Illy hopes to see a growth in coffee consumption this year. He shares his thoughts with GCR on what to expect for the coffee industry in 2024.
Two common factors loom over the future of coffee production: social development and the need to adapt to climate change. Two things are still needed for adaptation to climate change: improved agronomic practices and the renewal of plantations with more resistant varieties.
Regenerative agriculture seems to provide an answer to the first need, and I hope that this will become a model for the whole café culture, since it has proven to be more resilient and to produce both environmental and health benefits. As far as renewal is concerned, we need supply chain investments that cannot be delayed any longer. Such an adaptation plan to climate change requires investments in the order of US $10 billion over the next 10 years. It is necessary to activate private public partnerships that can mobilise international supply chain funds to support the producer countries. This is a major challenge for 2024, which has already engaged the most important governmental, intergovernmental, non-governmental and private stakeholders for some years now.
illycaffè has achieved important results concerning regenerative agriculture and coffee security. Today, 70 per cent of the producers who sell us coffee adopt regenerative practices. This year for the first time, a Brazilian regenerative certified coffee – chosen blindly among the nine best coffees in the world – was awarded with the Ernesto Illy International Coffee Award. This confirms that the rewards received by illycaffè for having transformed Brazil from a leader in quantity to a leader in quality are well-deserved. After more than 25 years of never-ending and tireless work by our team of agronomists and the University of Coffee, the leap has finally happened thanks to regenerative agriculture, which we decided to develop in 2018 for the benefits it brings to the environment and everyone’s health.
As far as my expectations for the coffee industry in 2024 are concerned, I hope that we will see a growth in consumption and that the entry into force of European legislation against deforestation will not cause supply problems.
This article was first published in the January/February 2024 edition of Global Coffee Report. Read more HERE.
