It doesn’t take long   if you follow the coffee news to realise how much the coffee farmers work to accommodate weather and other natural problems, such as disease and fungus, to make sure that they maximise their coffee output.

There has been news recently about a struggle with the effects of the rains for instance.

As reported in The Hindu Business Line, in Karnataka, there have been some unseasonal rains recently which are causing the local coffee farmers to have something of a headache.

The last 10 days have seen a couple of unexpected rainy periods, with some 4-5 centimetres of rain in some areas.

Why is this a problem?

Because the rain could adversely affect the quality of the coffee and also future output too.

At the moment, farmers are drying coffee and obviously the rains are not helping this process.

It has been said that the wetness and lack of sunlight means that it is taking an extra 10 days to dry the coffee (25 as opposed to the usual 15 days).

Another consequence is that the existing crop of coffee could be adversely affected.

For example, the rain might kickstart an early flowering of the plants   and this might mean that the growing plants need additional showers at a particular time to keep growing and avoid crop failure.