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Geographical concentration of cultivation
As shown in Tables 1 to 3, the cumulative data unmistakably point to hops as the commodity with the greatest cultivation concentration. Indeed, the United States and Germany alone account for roughly three-quarters of the entire world production. In wine production, the concentration appears less pronounced because it takes the output volume of the top seven countries to add up to a cumulative three-quarters of world production. In barley, the cultivation of the crop for all uses – including animal feed – is the most dispersed because even the top one-dozen countries combined still produce less than three-quarters of the world harvest. Only five countries (marked in yellow) appear in all three tables.
Table 1: World’s leading hop producers (percent of world production, based on rounded averages published by several sources over the past three years)The cultivation geography of hops
A breakdown of the hop data within the key producer countries (Table 1) further highlights the geographic concentration. In the United States, the State of Washington alone produces about 70 percent of the country’s hops, mostly in the Yakima Valley, with the Willamette Valley in Oregon and the Treasure Valley in Idaho accounting for almost all of the rest.
Likewise, In Germany, the Hallertau north of Munich, with an area similar to that of Washington D.C., accounts for roughly 80 percent of the entire German hop volume, which translates into almost 30 percent of world production. Elbe-Saale and Tettnang are a distance 2nd and 3rd, each with about 7.5 percent of the German production, followed by Spalt with only about two percent.
In Czechia, about three-quarters of the country’s hop production is concentrated in the Žatec (Saaz) region, with the Auscha and Tirschitz areas making up the rest.
Table 2: World’s leading wine producers (percent of world production, based on rounded averages published by several sources over the past three years)The cultivation geography of grapes
The cultivation of grapes for wines and spirits seems to be well dispersed, yet their varietal terroir expressions run very deep. Thus, a cabernet sauvignon grown in the Bordeaux region, for instance, is simply a different wine than the same product from California, Chile, Australia, South Africa, or Spain, which means they are not interchangeable if a severe climate event ruins the harvest in one of these regions.
Generally, winemakers consider warmer temperatures – though not extreme droughts – a blessing, but extended periods of high heat and excess sunshine can also cause the grapes to become overripe. On the positive side though, viticulture is now becoming possible in some areas once deemed too inhospitable for grapes, such as the UK and even Sweden.
Table 3: World's leading barley producers (The rankings in Table 3 are based on rounded averages published by several sources over the past three years, while the percentages are calculated no a nominal average world barley production of 150 million metric tons per year)The cultivation geography of barley
Nowadays, barley is cultivated in almost every country from Finland to Morocco to Australia. This geographic diversity, however, is no hedge against the ravages of climate change when we consider malting and brewing quality barley alone, for which there are no clear statistics.
We know anecdotally that the overwhelming quantity of non-feed barley comes from just a few countries. These are Germany, Australia, Canada, France, Argentina, and the UK. In fact, in Bavaria, Germany’s largest barley-producing state almost 80 percent of the barley crop is suitable for brewing purposes … the reverse of the global average.
A wildfire in a bone-dry landscape outside Yreka, California, in June 2021Climate change: The basics
Fossil fuels are energy-rich underground remains of plants that lived in swampy forests between 300 to 100 million years ago. But starting in the mid-1700s, humans began to use them to power their new, mechanized production and transportation systems, with the consequence of releasing, within a scant 300 years, huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, that it had taken the ancient plants millions of years to sequester.
As a result, scientists now predict that, by the early 2030s, the annual mean global near-surface temperature will be about 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above preindustrial levels; and by about 2050, sea levels may be 33 cm (13”) higher than they are today. Eventually, should all glaciers and ice caps melt, global sea levels could even rise some 70 m (230 feet), flooding much of the earth’s landmass.
The power of ENSO
Perhaps the most significant climate-determining factor for the globe is the so-called El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a repeating climate pattern that stretches across the tropical Pacific between Australia and Peru. It consists of a warm El Niño (“the boy”) phase and a cool La Niña (“the girl”) phase, each affecting sea surface temperatures, atmospheric pressures, and precipitation patterns. The cycle has far-reaching effects beyond its equatorial origins. It can alter the flow of the earth’s two polar and two subtropical jet streams and influence weather in such disparate locations as the Horn of Africa and Siberia, as well as the grain baskets in Central Europe, Russia, Ukraine, China, the northwestern United States, and the Canadian Prairies. In Australia, El Niño has caused widespread droughts, flooding, and wildfires, which cut the country’s barley harvest by one-half of normal; and in such in countries such as Ethiopia, Guatemala, and Sudan, which rely on large barley imports for both human and livestock consumption, it has caused recurring humanitarian disasters.Climatologists now forecast that climate change will make the cyclical swings of these equatorial oscillations much more extreme, with El Niño extending beyond its normal three-year duration and dumping more water and snow in some places while causing more severe droughts in others. Likewise, the cooling La Niña is likely to become shorter than its normal 12 months but also more severe, causing both more storms in the Atlantic and deeper droughts and large-scale wildfires in the hops, barley, and grape growing regions of western North America.
Outlook
While the effects of climate change are predictable on a global macro level, they are unpredictable on a geographic micro level. Thus, combined with the terroir-rooted nature of hops, barley, grapes, and many other raw materials (including plums for slivovitz, apples for calvados, and Sfusato Amalfitano lemons for limoncello) they define the multifaceted challenges that all stake holders in the agriculture-based beverage industry must face. Combatting these challenges involves the fast-track breeding of new, earlier-maturing, drought-resistant, and more nitrogen-efficient varieties; changing agronomic practices, especially in irrigation, fertilization, and disease and pest control; and convincing farmers, processors, and consumer goods producers to make the new raw materials part of their operations ... All against the backdrop of reducing our overall use of fossil fuels, which is the underlying cause of our problems, in the first place.
In the fight against climate change, we have only just begun. Humans simply must take targeted and accelerating action now, lest our treasured beverage raw materials become too difficult to grow or even disappear forever, which would make our human experience on this earth that much poorer.
Editor’s note
As part of the Forum BrauBeviale, Horst Dornbusch will lead three expert round table discussions about climate change and the challenges for hop, barley, and grape cultivation on Wednesday, November 29, between 1:10 and 3 p.m.
