What climate change means for the future of coffee and other popular foods

While farming coffee will be more challenging in a warmer climate, some countries will be able to grow more cashews and avocados, a new study finds.

By the year 2050, the world’s agricultural landscape could look very different than it looks now.

Around 10 billion people will need to be fed, up from the nearly 8 billion on Earth today, and climate change will alter where that food comes from. Already, warming temperatures are allowing tropical foods to thrive in growing regions further north, where they haven’t before—citrus, for example, is being grown in Georgia and avocados on Italy’s island of Sicily.

“Take your computer and type in climate change followed by your favorite food, and you will, half the time, get a climate change story affecting your favorite food,” says Michael Hoffman, an author of the recently published book Our Changing Menu.

A new study published in the

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