WHEN Jesus Maria Aguirre saw his coffee bushes wither away, he knew that he had lost the sole source of income for his family. “We would go to collect coffee and would come back with our baskets nearly empty,” says the Colombian grower, recalling the pernicious effects of the “coffee rust” fungus, or roya.
当赫苏斯·玛利亚·阿吉雷看到了他的咖啡树日渐枯萎时，他意识到，这下他的家庭失去了唯一的收入来源。“我们去田里采咖啡豆，结果只能篮子空空地回来。”这位哥伦比亚的种植者在回想起这种咖啡锈病真菌，或被称为“罗亚”所带来的恶性影响时这样说到。
The fungus stunts the growth of the fruit of arabica coffee plants. It infected about 40% of Colombia's crop between 2008 and 2012. Production plunged from a high of 12.6m 60kg bags a year in 2007 to just 7.7m bags in 2012. As supply from Colombia shrank, international buyers turned to growers elsewhere.
这种真菌阻滞了阿拉比卡豆咖啡树果实的生长。在2008年至2012年间，它已经使哥伦比亚 40%的作物受到了感染，产量因此由2007年的峰值1260万袋60公斤的咖啡豆暴跌至2012年的仅770万袋。随着哥伦比亚的咖啡供应量的萎缩，国际上的咖啡买家开始向其它咖啡生产地寻求供应。
What Mr Aguirre went through then is now the lot of farmers throughout Central America, the Dominican Republic, southern Mexico and Jamaica. Production there fell by 30% between 2011 and 2013 because of roya, reckons the International Coffee Organisation. USAID thinks it has caused $1 billion of economic damage in Latin America since 2012. This time Colombians are the ones taking advantage.
当时阿吉雷先生所遭受的窘境现在已经席卷了中美洲、多米尼加、南墨西哥以及牙买加。据国际咖啡组织估计，由于受“罗亚”影响，这些地区的咖啡产量在2011年至2013年间已下跌了30%。美国国际开发署认为，自从2012年起，这种锈病已经导致了拉丁美洲范围内高达10亿美元的经济损失。不过这次，哥伦比亚的种植户却可以置身事外甚至因此获利。
On his farm on the slopes of the country's central mountain range, Mr Aguirre today presides over 1.5 hectares (4 acres) of healthy bushes plump with red berries. For yields to recover, he had to yank up fungus-prone bushes and plant a new variety that promised to fight off the blight. He was one of thousands of farmers who joined in a countrywide scheme run by the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation, which represents more than 500,000 independent growers. By June 2014 more than 3 billion bushes had been replanted.
现如今，在阿吉雷先生位于哥伦比亚中部山脉山坡上的农场里，他照料着超过1.5公顷的种满红色果实的健康的咖啡树。当初为了使产量恢复，他不得不剔除了易感真菌的植株并且种植了一种据信可抗枯萎的新品种。阿吉雷先生是全国范围种植计划的数千参与者之一，这个计划是由哥伦比亚咖啡种植者联合会运作的，这个联合会代表了超过50万的独立种植户。截至2014年6月，这种新植株已重新种植了超过30亿棵。
Three-quarters of them were replaced with a roya-resistant variety known as Castillo, which had been developed in the labs of Cenicafé, the coffee federation's research arm, after 13 years of selective breeding. Lindsey Bolger, head coffee buyer for Keurig Green Mountain, a roaster in the United States, said the industry was “on pins and needles” about whether the Castillo would work. It has. Colombia produced 11.5m bags in the 12 months to June 2014, up by 31% on the previous 12-month period, according to the coffee federation. Buyers are coming back.
这些咖啡树中的四分之三被一种被称为“卡斯蒂罗”的 “抗罗亚”品种替代，此品种是由哥伦比亚国家咖啡研究中心实验室经过13年精心选育开发出来的。林塞·博尔捷，美国绿山咖啡烘焙公司的首席采购，在谈及 “卡斯蒂罗”能否担任恢复产量重任时，形容咖啡产业对此是“如坐针毡”。事实上，“卡斯蒂罗”做到了。据咖啡联合会数据，截至2014年6月的12个月内，哥伦比亚出产了1150万袋咖啡豆，比上个同期的产量增长了31%。采购商们又把目光开始投回哥伦比亚。
Fernando Gast, Cenicafé's director, says seeds of the Castillo coffee plants have been sent to Mexico, El Salvador and Costa Rica for evaluation. But he warns that Colombia's success story is not directly transferable to Central America. The Castillo variety was created for Colombia's needs and may not adapt to Central America's soil and climate, he says.
费尔南多·加斯特，哥伦比亚国家咖啡研究中心实验室主任，表示“卡斯蒂罗”的种子已被送往墨西哥、萨尔瓦多以及哥斯达黎加进行进一步评估。但是他也警告说，哥伦比亚的产业复苏经验并不可被中美洲地区直接套用。“卡斯蒂罗”品种是为了满足哥伦比亚的需求而研发生产的，所以可能并不适合在中美洲的土壤及气候环境条件下种植。
Cenicafé's 89 researchers cannot rest easy, either. They are working on a project to map the coffee genome. That should help them develop new varieties that will not only resist roya, which is continuously evolving, but will also be less susceptible to erratic weather. The search for a stronger brew is never over.
实验室的89位研究人员们也还不能高枕无忧。他们现在正在进行一个绘制咖啡树基因谱的项目，这将有助他们培育新的变种，这种变种不仅能抵抗“罗亚”及其以后可能出现的其它变种，还能更不易受到不稳定天候影响的新品种植株。对于更优良品种的研究总会一直进行下去。
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