(CN) — A research paper released Monday in Nature Genetics mapped the genome and considered the possible origins of the world's most widely consumed species of coffee: Coffea arabica.
The team of scientist who carried out the coffee genome study, led by researchers from the State University of New York at Buffalo, claimed their research could aid in the production of coffee plants more resistant to climate change and other environmental stresses.
"Analysis of modern varieties... highlights their breeding histories and loci that may contribute to pathogen resistance, laying the groundwork for future genomics-based breeding of C. arabica," the study's authors said.
The research places the origin of arabica coffee — which accounts for 60% of global coffee production — in the forests of what is now southwestern Ethiopia, between 350,000 and 610,000 years ago.
Its ancient roots means the species likely evolved without much interference from humans, unlike other staple crops that are the direct result of selective breeding. Instead, modern arabica seems to have arisen as a result of the natural crossbreeding of two other coffee species, Coffea canephora and Coffea eugenioides.
The scientists hypothesized that modern arabica cultivation didn't begin until about 600 years ago. It was concentrated in what is now Yemen.
And even as humans began to farm coffee more intensely, they meddled in its genetics relatively little compared to other staple crops.
“It looks like Yemeni coffee diversity may be the founder of all of the current major varieties,” Patrick Descombes, one of the study's lead researchers and a genetic scientist with the Nestlé corporation, said in a prepared statement. “Coffee is not a crop that has been heavily crossbred, such as maize or wheat, to create new varieties. People mainly chose a variety they liked and then grew it. So the varieties we have today have probably been around for a long time.”
Because arabica "harbors a particularly low genetic diversity," the researchers said, it's highly susceptible to pests, diseases and changes in climate. There is evidence in nature, however, of arabica hybrids being more resilient than their single-strain ancestors.
A natural hybrid of arabica and canephora coffee plants found on the southeast Asian island of Timor in the 1920s proved resistant to a fungal disease known as coffee leaf rust, and since then the hybrid has been introduced to other widely grown arabica cultivars.
Another of the study's lead researchers told Courthouse News that mapping arabica's genetic history could pave the way for more deliberate and drastic modifications of the species than the one that occurred naturally in Timor.
Eventually scientists could modify the plant's genome directly using CRISPR gene editing technology, said Victor Albert, an evolutionary biology professor at the University at Buffalo.
"Knowing the parts of the genome where disease resistance might be encoded is the first step toward either 'smart,' genome-assisted breeding, or even better, genome editing using CRISPR," Alberts said via email. "That’s where you manipulate the genome of coffee itself, not inserting genes from other organisms."
Besides making arabica plants more disease-resistant, Albert suggested that genetically modified coffee plants could be made more resistant to drought and changes in soil salinity. With sufficient changes, the plants could even be engineered to grow in temperate regions. (At present, commercial coffee-growing is restricted mostly to the tropics.)
Albert also rejected the suggestion that reducing human coffee consumption, or deliberately allowing arabica plants to re-wild in natural areas, would help increase the plant's genetic diversity or resilience to environmental stresses.
"It’s like — would polar bears evolve more capacity to live outside sea ice regions if we protected them better and left them alone? No," Albert said.
"They are so highly inbred, the only logical expectation would be population growth — which is of course relevant for their conservation, but not for enhancing their robustness to climate change."
Albert and Descombes' team have worked on the research for Monday's study since 2015 and received the majority of their funding from Nestlé. The multinational food corporation, despite repeatedly affirming a commitment to environmental sustainability since the 1990s and promising to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, has for decades been involved in controversies over environmentally destructive practices — including the spread of plastic pollution and deforestation.
It has also faced criticism for relying on unethical labor practices, which run from union-busting to child labor to slavery, in the production of its food products. Former Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe once defended privatizing water supplies, calling the view that water is a basic human right "extreme" when interviewed for the 2005 Austrian documentary "We Feed the World."
Despite the controversies, Albert denied having any ethical concerns over the study's funding or how Nestlé might use his team's research.
"This project was philanthropic in nature, designed to benefit the entire global coffee community," Albert said. "I.e., for any company, stakeholder or organization that could benefit, including entire developing countries where coffee is a major part of local economies."
Coffee products make up more than a quarter of Nestle's sales portfolio. In 2021, the products netted the Swiss-based company more than $25 billion.
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