Impact of climate change on Ethiopian Arabica coffee production and current challenges it poses to coffee value chain

• Rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns are affecting coffee value chain (farm-to-cup). • Khat, Eucalyptus, Juniperus procera, and Grevillea cultivations are expanding in coffee growing areas. • The increasing incidence of coffee berry disease (CBD) and coffee wilt disease (CWD) pose a threat to the coffee sector. • The severity of heavy rainfalls, landslides, floods, droughts, ice, and frosts is currently escalating in coffee-growing regions. • Climate change is causing coffee production in the lowlands to decline while increasing in the highlands. • Land competition, social and environmental pressures are growing in highland areas. • Climate change has reduced coffee production, decreased income, exacerbated food insecurity, and perpetuated the poverty cycle. • Urgent locally tailored sustainable coffee farming practices need to be undertaken. Ethiopia’s coffee sector, pivotal to the nation’s economy and cultural identity, is currently navigating a labyrinth of natural factors with climate change casting a long and formidable shadow over the future. This necessitates various measures to improve coffee sector resilience through the use of sustainable agricultural techniques. Accordingly, this study aimed to examine the effects of climate change on Arabica coffee production and the challenges it poses to the coffee value chain. This study used a mixed approach that combined both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Data were collected from 1020 coffee producers through a survey, 30 focus group discussions, and 67 semi-structured interviews. The findings show that climate change affects Arabica coffee by increasing temperature, changing rainfall patterns, and extreme weather occurrences, leading to disease proliferation, post-harvest loss, shifting suitable coffee areas, and expansion of khat and commercial trees. Generally, the current impact of climate change on the coffee value chain underscores the immediate need for policymakers and agricultural practitioners to effectively implement sustainable coffee production, processing, storage, and transport methods to enhance the sector’s resilience.