SIERRA PIURA, PERU — In the foothills of the Andes, in the Sierra Piura region of Peru, the problems faced by coffee farmers are clear. Up to 6,600 farmers produce here for the Central Piurana de Cafetaleros co-operative (Cepicafe), growing 4,000 tonnes a year of the finest Peruvian coffee on family plots scattered across the mountainside. Together, year in, year out, they bring in this special harvest, the arabica coffee cherries, which are painstakingly picked by hand, processed and dried in the sun.

However, thanks to ‘weather change’, a continual topic of conversation in the area, the harvest is unpredictable. Last year, there was too little rain in the region. This year there has been a deluge: in some areas an increase of 500% on the ‘norm’.

‘I still think coffee is worthwhile,’ says 47-year-old Gusto Regis. ‘It’s not yet as bad as 1983.’ That was when the El Niño weather system hit, and landslides and flooding drove his family away to find work labouring in an adjoining region. ‘Of course we had no land and no money so we needed to come back. I don’t know what we would do if we had to leave again.’

In the neighbouring village, Alejandro Reyes […]