![]() This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. ![]() Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. Philip Reeves, NPR News, Rio de Janeiro.Ĭopyright © 2021 NPR. REEVES: A problem that goes well beyond coffee. And if Brazil's drought doesn't end soon.ĪRARIPE: Well, Houston, we have a problem. REEVES: That likely means we must all pay more for that morning fix. REEVES: Back in his office in Rio de Janeiro, Luiz Araripe from the Valorizacao coffee company is making another cup and mulling what Brazil's drought means for business.ĪRARIPE: We're going to have a very, very small arabica production this year, and we are going to have a very small production for the next crop year as well. He's wondering if it's time to retire, yet he's reluctant to quit because he says.ĪRARIPE: Coffee quality - it's a very long discussion. He says this year, the farm will make its first ever loss. REEVES: And now, he says, it's happening again. REEVES: Ribeiro's coffee harvest was devastated by the drought last year. If it doesn't rain soon, the water will run out completely. REEVES: "Everyone's worried," says Osvaldo. REEVES: "There were cafes and condos, boats and jet skis," says Osvaldo, who's Ribeiro's cousin. People called it the Sea of Minas Gerais. REEVES: "There was loads of water here," says Osvaldo Henrique de Castro Paiva, who has a fishing cabin here. OSVALDO HENRIQUE DE CASTRO PAIVA: (Non-English language spoken). Now the water's vanished over the horizon. Before the drought, the lake was twice the size of Chicago. The lake was created in the 1960s when the government built a giant hydroelectric plant, the Furnas Dam. To an area that used to be the shores of a huge lake. He says the frost is part of a new pattern of crazy weather, including hailstorms. REEVES: "The damage was huge," says Ribeiro. REEVES: A couple of months ago, this area was hit by the heaviest frost since 1994. REEVES: The leaves of all the plants are brown and shriveled. We bump along a dirt lane, leaving a trail of red-coloured dust and stop beside a big field full of coffee plants. There's something else he wants to show me. REEVES: He shows us his rain gauge attached to a fence. REEVES: "There's been hardly any rain, and the rains are late," he says. He has 300 acres in the low hills outside the city of Varginha. REEVES: Jose Pinto Ribeiro has been growing coffee here since inheriting his grandfather's farm 38 years ago. JOSE PINTO RIBEIRO: (Non-English language spoken). REEVES: It takes seven hours to drive north from Rio across the mountains to Minas Gerais and into coffee country. The second biggest producer in the world is the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. REEVES: Many of the beans Araripe sells are from one huge Brazilian state that produces half the country's coffee.ĪRARIPE: I like always to say that the biggest producer in the world is Brazil. Last year, we have had one of the lowest rainfall readings on the coffee-producing areas for the last 90 years. The crop is being hit hard by the drought.ĪRARIPE: It's very serious. ![]() It ships arabica, Brazil's most widely grown bean used for top-quality coffee. REEVES: Araripe is a director of Valorizacao, a company that exports coffee worldwide. Brazilian young people drink more coffee than the Americans. REEVES: Araripe has spent 40 years in the coffee business in a country that loves this stuff.ĪRARIPE: Brazilians drink coffee all day long. LUIZ OTAVIO ARARIPE: By this time in the morning, I've already had six (laughter). REEVES: One block away, Luiz Otavio Araripe has already arrived in his fifth floor office. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken). UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken). It's how Brazilians kick-start their day. REEVES: "Coffee's really popular," she says. MARIA PEREIRA: (Non-English language spoken). Maria Pereira is sitting at a table on the sidewalk, selling coffee from a flask to passersby who need one last caffeine hit before clocking in. PHILIP REEVES, BYLINE: The commuters of downtown Rio de Janeiro arrive for work. NPR's Philip Reeves reports that worries Brazilians and Americans alike. Brazilian growers, however, are now suffering through the worst drought in nearly a century. That country is the world's largest coffee producer, and the U.S. If you're enjoying a cup of coffee, odds are that all or part of it - well, that it comes from Brazil.
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