Analysis of current and future bioclimatic suitability for C. arabica production in Ethiopia

The coffee sector in Ethiopia is the livelihood of more than 20% of the population and accounts more than 25% of the country's foreign exchange earnings. Climate change is expected to affect the climatic suitability of coffee in Ethiopia, and this would have implications for global coffee output, the national economy, and farmers' livelihoods in Ethiopia. The objective of this paper is to assess the current and future impacts of climate change on bioclimatic suitability to C.arbica production in Ethiopia. Based on the current distribution of coffee production areas and climate change predictions from HadGEM2 and CCSM2 models and using the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) bioclimatic modeling approach, future changes in climatic suitability for C. arabica were predicted. Coffee production sites in Ethiopia were geo-referenced and used as input in the MAXENT model. The findings indicated that climate change will increase the suitable growing area for coffee by about 44.2% and 30.37% under HadGEM2 and CCSM2 models, respectively, by 2080 in Ethiopia. The study also revealed a westward and northwestward shift in the climatic suitability to C. arabica production in Ethiopia. This indicates that the suitability of some areas will continue with some adaptation practice, whilst others currently suitable will be unsuitable, yet others that are unsuitable will be suitable for arabica coffee production. These findings are intended to support stakeholders in the coffee sector in developing strategies for reducing the vulnerability of coffee production to climate change. Site-specific strategies should be developed to build a more climate resilient coffee livelihood in the changing climate.