LITMIR.BIZ

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in cafés. In Guelph, the Red Brick Café and Planet Bean provided congenial writing environments. Much of the book was drafted and revised at the Brûlerie St. Denis on Rue St. Denis in Montreal, which for the price of a coffee allowed me to occupy the same table every morning, day after day, month after month. I could look up from my computer and see chalkboards listing coffees from the countries that I was writing about at that moment. Thanks especially to Stacey Cote-Jacques for the delicious lattés that fueled my muses, and for the conversations about coffee and origins.

      During the years I worked on this project, I lost a number of people close to me. Between 2006 and 2010, my parents Buff and Monica McCook and my brother Douglas McCook passed away. My parents were deeply committed to ensuring that their children had a good education, a commitment that is the foundation of my life as a historian. My grandmothers Edith McCook and Marion Sullivan also passed away during these years; they each leave me with fond memories of lively conversations, and so much more. My uncle Brian Blomme passed away in 2016; I miss his quiet sense of humor and his deep commitment to environmental issues. My father-in-law, Angel Antonio Viloria, who loved reading and had a boundless curiosity about the world around him, died just a few weeks before I submitted the final manuscript. I regret that they are not here to celebrate its completion.

      I would like to give a warm thanks to my families by birth and marriage in Canada and Venezuela. My extended Guelph family—my sister Sue McCook and brother-in-law Robert Chin and their children Cameron, Becca, and Gabby—helped in many ways. In the final weeks of the project, we adopted a cat named Luna, who helped keep things in perspective by reminding me that (mysteriously) some creatures don’t care at all about the history of coffee, or the coffee rust. Alicia Viloria-Petit has been both a literal and metaphorical companion on this project’s long journey; her love and support have made it possible. Our daughter Lucía was born while this project was in progress, and happily has inherited her parents’ love of travel. She now knows far more about the coffee commodity chain than the average Canadian eleven-year-old. Without Lucía, the book would have been finished much more quickly, but my life would have been infinitely poorer. Lucía brings me joy every single day; in return, I dedicate this book to her.

       Abbreviations and Acronyms

AMECAFÉ	Asociación Mexicana de la Cadena Productiva del Café, A.C. (Mexican Association of the Coffee Production Chain)
ANACAFÉ	Asociación Nacional del Café (National Coffee Association; Guatemala)
CABI	Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux International
CADA	Companhia Angolana de Agricultura (Angolan Agriculture Corporation)
CAFÉNICA	Asociación de Cooperativas de Pequeños Productores de Café de Nicaragua (Association of Cooperatives of Small Coffee Producers of Nicaragua)
CATIE	Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center; Turrialba, Costa Rica)
CBD	coffee berry disease
CEFCA	Comissão Executiva da Erradicação da Ferrugem do Cafeeiro (Executive Committee for the Eradication of the Coffee Rust; Brazil)
CENICAFÉ	Centro Nacional de Investigaciones de Café (National Center for Coffee Research; Chinchiná, Colombia)
CIFC	Centro de Investigação das Ferrugens do Cafeeiro (Centre for Research into Coffee Rusts; Oeiras, Portugal)
CIRAD	Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development)
CRS	Catholic Relief Services
EMPBRAPA	Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation)
ENA	Escola Nacional da Agricultura (National Agricultural School; Portugal)
FAO	Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FNC	Federación Nacional de Cafeteros (National Federation of Coffee Growers; Colombia)
GERCA	Grupo Executivo de Racionalização da Cafeicultura (Executive Group for the Rationalization of Coffee Farming; Brazil)
GTZ	Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (German Technical Cooperation Agency; West Germany)
IAC	Instituto Agronômico de Campinas (Campinas Agronomic Institute; Brazil)
IBC	Instituto Brasileiro do Café (Brazilian Coffee Institute)
ICA	International Coffee Agreement
ICO	International Coffee Organization
IFCC	Institut Français du Café et du Cacao (French Coffee and Cacao Institute)
ICAFÉ	Instituto del Café de Costa Rica (Costa Rican Coffee Institute)
IHCAFÉ	Instituto Hondureño del Café (Honduran Coffee Institute)
IICA	Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación para la Agricultura (Interamerican Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture; Costa Rica)
INEAC	Institut National pour l’Etude Agronomique du Congo Belge (National Institute for the Agronomic Study of the Belgian Congo)
INMECAFÉ	Instituto Mexicano del Café (Mexican Coffee Institute)
JIU	Junta de Investigações do Ultramar (Board of Overseas Research; Portugal)
MAG	Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería (Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock; Costa Rica)
NISM	Netherlands India Steam Navigation Company
OIRSA	Organismo Internacional Regional de Sanidad Agropecuaria (Regional International Organization for Agricultural Health; Mexico and Central America)
ORSTOM	Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique Outre-Mer (Office of Overseas Scientific and Technical Research; France)
PIAC	Plan Integral de Atención al Café (Integrated Program for Coffee; Mexico)
PROMECAFÉ	Programa Cooperativo Regional Para el Desarollo Tecnológico y Modernización de la Caficultura (Regional Cooperative Program for Technological Development and Modernization of Coffee Production)
PSF	Permanencia Sostenibilidad y Futuro (Permanence, Sustainability, and Future; Colombia)
ROCAP	Regional Office for Central America and Panama, Office of USAID
SAGARPA	Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca, y Alimentación (Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries, and Food; Mexico)
SENASICA	Servicio Nacional de Sanidad, Inocuidad, y Calidad Agroalimentaria (National Health Service, Food Safety, and Food Quality; Mexico)
SICA	Sistema de Información Cafetera (Coffee Information System; Colombia)
STICA	Servicio Técnico Interamericano de Cooperación Agrícola (Interamerican Technical Service for Agricultural Cooperation)
UPASI	United Planters’ Association of Southern India
USAID	United States Agency for International Development
WCR	World Coffee Research

      CHAPTER 1

       The Devourer of Dreams

      IT CAME as a surprise: a familiar nuisance suddenly turned an unfamiliar catastrophe. Over several seasons, coffee farmers from Peru to Mexico saw more and more yellow spots appear on the leaves of their trees. In previous seasons, the rust might have caused the occasional spot, but nothing serious. Now, however, leaves engulfed with lesions fell to the ground, leaving skeletal trees alive but entirely defoliated. The disease moved into highland areas that had previously escaped the disease. In February 2013, Guatemala’s Prensa libre interviewed smallholders whose farms had been devastated by the rust. “I never thought this would happen to me,” said Mauricio Méndez, whose farm had escaped the first rust outbreak in the 1980s. A smallholder named Bartolo Chavajay “could not contain his tears in the face of his rust-infested plot.” The rust had destroyed Chavajay’s entire harvest—his only source of income. Without the income, he wondered how he would feed his family. Yet another farmer, Moisés Misa, worried that the disease would harm his coffee’s quality, reducing the price he would receive from buyers and lowering his modest income. Over several seasons, similar scenarios played out in thousands of farms across the Americas. The rust, wrote the Prensa libre, devoured the hopes of farmers. Even five years later some farmers—and some countries—are still struggling to rebuild their coffee farms.¹

      This outbreak, now known as the Big Rust, was the latest episode in a much longer story. The coffee rust is caused by a fungus

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