Climate change erodes Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee yields and export quality

Specialists warn that climate change is squeezing Jamaica's coffee highlands and undermining the island's premium Blue Mountain standing in world markets.

Over roughly the past two years, heavy rains during peak crop periods—alongside Hurricane Beryl and recent drought, wildfire and hurricane conditions—have deepened losses across the sector. Growers have lost about 100,000 boxes of coffee, with figures cited in the billions of dollars.

In Portland's Blue Mountain belt, farmer Andrew Sweaby is among dozens of producers reporting sharply lower yields after months of dry weather. He said extreme heat has thinned and lightened cherries to the point that much of what is harvested fails grading at the depot.

"When you float it in the water, the good one go down and the bad one come up," Sweaby said. Heat stress and pests leave damaged berries lighter, so buyers pour samples into water: sound cherries sink while inferior ones float. He said a farmer may pay a reaper roughly $2,005 to fill a box, only for the entire load to be rejected because the cherries cannot meet weight standards.

Sweaby added that rejected fruit might still be processed if growers had on-site pulping capacity, but that infrastructure is not widely available to smallholders.

Research shows rising temperatures are making Jamaica's coffee zones less suitable, including the Blue Mountain range—the island's highest and traditionally coolest coffee country across Portland, St. Thomas and St. Andrew. High-elevation farms in other parishes outside Kingston face similar pressure.

Scientists say production volume, bean quality and overall suitability will likely decline first outside the core Blue Mountain zone, though that flagship region is not immune—it may simply take longer for the worst effects to appear. They caution that the cost of inaction could be heavy for an export crop central to Jamaica's agricultural identity.

TVJ News correspondent Kalisha Williams tracked the crisis in "Brewed by the Heat," a documentary more than a year in the making that spans Blue Mountain heartland farms and highland coffee areas islandwide.