David Ngibuini is a second-generation coffee farmer in Kenya's central highlands, an area of cool temperatures and rich volcanic soil that's long been one of the best places to grow coffee on Earth. On an afternoon in May, after a couple of months of rain, his 11-acre plot is lush. Six thousand trees — nearly all of them varieties of Coffea arabica, the most widely consumed and best-tasting coffee species — sit in neatly planted rows, their waxy, deep green leaves shimmering in the sun. Workers sort a pile of freshly-picked cherries — the red fruit that contains the beans that will be fermented, dried, and shipped to roasters around the world.
The vigor of this year's harvest masks a deeper, existential struggle. Arabica coffee, which has been farmed in Kenya since the 19th century, is especially vulnerable to climate change. One 2022 study, from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, projects the amount of land most suitable to growing it will fall more than 50 percent by 2050.
