News

Genebanks are a critical resource housing precious plants genetic diversity. A partnership between CNRA, USDA, Crop Trust, and WCR will make the genebank collection at CNRA in Cote d’Ivoire—one of the most important in coffee genetics—more accessible to the global research community.

A new research paper confirms that South Sudan is a center of evolutionary origin for arabica, and the plant populations in the area possess unique genetic diversity. The diversity was rediscovered on a 2012 expedition, in an area subsequently engulfed by war. The open-access paper, “Validating South Sudan as a Center of Origin for Coffee arabica: Implications for Conservation and Coffee Crop Improvement” was published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems.

World Coffee Research is a new nonprofit partner of 1% for the Planet, an alliance of more than 5,000 business and individual members that give back to support environmental nonprofits.

A new four-year, $6 million grant will support coordinated research to address the threat of coffee leaf rust for coffee farmers in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Its impact, however, will extend far beyond U.S. growers to help the global coffee community combat leaf rust.

For International Coffee Day 2021, we are taking a moment to reflect on what we’ve accomplished at WCR in the past couple years and what we have in store for the months and years ahead.