Saving coffee.

Cultivated coffee trees are under serious threat from climate change, disease and insect pests. The homogeneity of the crop makes it particularly vulnerable: nearly all of the world’s cultivated coffee originated with a handful of plants grown in Ethiopia. Little scientific research has gone into cultivating coffee, but that situation is beginning to change. Scientists are now hurrying to introduce helpful new genes into the crop through crossbreeding methods. They are mining gene banks and wild plants for as wide a variety of genes as they can find to fortify the crop against looming trouble. ag r I cu Lt u r e