Agro-climatic Update of Favorable Areas to the Cultivation of Robusta and Arabusta Coffee in Côte d'Ivoire

Abstract

Following a drastic fall in coffee production, Côte d'Ivoire has made it a priority to revive its coffee-growing industry. This requires the development of regionalized technical itineraries adapted to climate change. To this end, agro-climatic analyzes were carried out using data from 55 rain gauge stations covering the period from 1985 to 2019. This involved cross-referencing the climatic parameters calculated, taking into account the climatic requirements of coffee trees (Robusta and Arabusta) to define homogeneous agro-climatic zones in the forest and pre-forest zones bounded by the 8th parallel north. The results show that 70.47% of the area is suitable for growing Robusta coffee, compared with 11.37% for Arabusta. The mountainous west remains generally favorable to growing both varieties of coffee. The study also updated information on the agro-climatic suitability of coffee-growing areas.