咖啡危機 Can Science Avert a Coffee Crisis?

Can Science Avert a Coffee Crisis?

Researchers are racing to breed beneficial new traits into the dangerously homogeneous coffee crop before it succumbs to disease or other threats

By Hillary Rosner

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The coffee that the caterer had set down alongside some guava-filled pastries was tepid and bitter, with top notes of chlorine. Several of the guests would not touch it, no matter how much they craved caffeine. Standing on a narrow balcony, facing the scrubby hills of Turrialba, Costa Rica, they sipped water or pineapple juice instead. They were entitled to a little coffee snobbery. The roughly 20 people gathered this past March at CATIE, an agricultural university, to discuss the uncertain future of Central American coffee included leading experts on humanity's most beloved beverage.

They had convened to discuss a serious threat: coffee rust, or roya, as it is known in Spanish. The rust is a fungus that infects the plants' leaves, making them unable to absorb the sunlight they need to survive. It has ravaged the region's crop over the past few years, afflicting approximately half of the one million acres planted across Central America and slashing production by about 20 percent in 2012 compared with 2011.

【咖啡危機】
　
你知道咖啡店裡陳列的各式咖啡豆，其實70%都來自單一品種：阿拉比卡咖啡嗎？雖然人們利用不同的品系、栽培地區和烘培技巧製造出各式各樣的風味，但今日大部份的咖啡品種恐怕都無法抵擋病蟲害、氣候變遷造成的溫度上升及其他環境威脅。
　
全球科學家試圖透過雜交，把有用的新基因引入咖啡樹裡。 他們也在基因庫和野生植株中尋找各種可以強化咖啡的基因，以對抗咖啡絕種的危機。
　
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