Brazil Works on Creating Weather-Resistant Coffee Bushes By
Mario Osava By the end of the year, biotechnology experts in
Brazil hope to have a complete map of 200,000 genes of the
coffee plant – information that will be of great value in
reducing the crop’s vulnerability to global warming. RIO DE
JANEIRO, (Tierramérica).- Brazil is making steady progress
mapping out the genome of the coffee plant, with the aim of
obtaining a higher-quality product and making coffee bushes
resistant not only to pests, but also to climate change, one of
the plant’s worst enemies. Through the Coffee Genome Project,
two teams of scientific researchers are mapping out the
“sequence” of 200,000 of the plant’s genes, thus making Brazil
the only coffee-producing country to have engaged in such an
endeavour. The main objective is to increase the resistance of
coffee bushes to disease, extreme temperatures and drought, said
Embrapa Café, a branch of the Brazilian Company of Agricultural
Research (Embrapa) that specializes in coffee, an