AFP/Getty Images Deisy Mireya collects coffee beans at a Colombian coffee farm in May.In Colombia’s coffee-producing region of Risaralda, small trees run along the sharp incline of the Andes Mountains, carefully tended in tidy rows. Thousands of green coffee berries turn brilliant red as they ripen, ready to be harvested by hand. The steep hills here prevent mechanized techniques. Its unique geography makes Colombia one of the world’s greatest coffee-producing nations, selling US$2.64 billion of mild, high-altitude Arabica beans to countries around the world each year. Only Brazil and Vietnam export more coffee. Despite their global reach, coffee farms in Colombia are generally family-owned and modest in size — perhaps 5 to 12 acres. These fertile mountains already face weather-related risks, such as mudslides and erosion. Now, the country’s coffee region is increasingly vulnerable to climate-change-induced disasters like flooding, drought and invasive pests. For the country’s 300,000 coffee producers, these extreme weather threats — coupled with the increasingly unpredictable seasons, crop disease and invasive insects associated with climate change — endanger their livelihoods.\via