Nestlé will invest USD 1 bn to save coffee from climate-related threats. The world’s largest coffee company, Nestle, has committed to investing upward of CHF 1 bn (USD 1 bn) to encourage sustainable farming among suppliers, as farmers contend with extreme weather and other climate change-related challenges, Bloomberg writes. The Swiss company, which works with upward of 500k farmers, will train them on best planting techniques and offer them cash incentives to take action to mitigate crop threats to improve soil health, plant fertility and optimize water usage. The company is looking to source all of its coffee responsibly by the middle of this decade, up from 82% in 2021.

Coffee-arable land is shrinking due to extreme weather, and coffee growers are taking the hit, as we noted last week. One estimate predicted that the area suitable for growing coffee will shrink by almost 50% by 2050. Coffee growers have been among the most impacted by climate change, leading some foodtech innovators to explore beanless coffee, which uses upcycled plant-based ingredients like sunflower seed husks and watermelon seeds (please, God, save us from Frankenfoods). Droughts followed by severe, unseasonal frost earlier this year in Brazil’s coffee-growing regions slashed the country’s arabica harvests by 40% and damaged trees, making it likely that next season’s harvest will be affected as well.