http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303644004577520483945763696.html
"Many factors are causing coffee's problems, experts say, including climate changes in some coffee-growing areas and population growth in Central America, which has led to pressure to convert coffee plots into housing and shopping malls."
"That's why some coffee-industry experts favor expanding the varieties of coffee being cultivated and crossbreeding plants to strengthen them. "The holy grail is a heat-resistant varietal that provides quality coffee,""
"If we could develop that, it would solve a lot of our problems."
"But efforts like World Coffee Research, which aim to persuade competitors to tackle common problems, face obstacles. Some of the world's largest coffee companies are pursuing proprietary research projects to expand coffee's genetics. Nestlé SA NESN.VX -0.76% has a project it calls the Nescafé plan, which involves robusta, the other major type of coffee bean, a spokeswoman says. And Starbucks Corp. SBUX +1.69% is conducting research through support centers staffed by agronomists who help local farmers, a spokeswoman says."
"...a taxonomist at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, England, saw a small coffee plant unlike the others. Its leaves were narrower, waxier and spongier, and it appeared to have evolved so that it could retain moisture and ward off ultraviolent rays." "...The plant's leaves were added to the group's collection of about 75 wild coffee samples pressed between wooden racks to preserve them for genetic analysis."
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