Stuart McCook

I’m delighted and honoured to report that COFFEE IS NOT FOREVER has received the Agricultural History Society’s Wallace Prize for the best book on agricultural history outside of the United States. aghistorysociety.org/awards @AgHistorySoc @OhioUnivPress

@Normanito1 @samdknowlton I hope you enjoy it!

@samdknowlton Note to s(h)elf: it's about time to get this one from my unread book shelf! jstor.org/stable/j.ctv22…

Coffee leaf rust is the most debilitating and widespread disease affecting coffee growers. It causes an estimated $1 billion in damage to coffee crops each year. Despite the significance and urgency, solutions are not well-known, and the ones that are well-known are not accessible to most farmers and tend to be ineffective in the long run. In response to the first rampant outbreak of rust in Latin America, rust-resistant coffee varieties were developed, promising farmers a future free of rust. Honduras aggressively adopted a rust-resistant variety called Lempira, replanting 42% of the country’s coffee lands with the lauded hybrid. Shortly thereafter, the supposed rust-resistant coffee trees were hit with an outbreak of rust. It turns out coffee leaf rust mutates rapidly and can evade genetic resistance and chemical controls. There are now 40 strains of rust and counting. Still, to this day, the majority of research, development, funding, attention, and credence goes towards the development of hybrids that will “ensure the future of coffee.” Coffee breeding is slow and expensive. It takes up to 15 years to produce a stable variety. Meanwhile, soil health, crop nutrition, and integrated management have all been overlooked, and often completely ignored. I’ve worked with several coffee farms to reduce coffee rust well below the threshold of economic damage by providing the trees with complete and timely nutrition, bringing the soil back to life, and using biological controls. In one case, rust incidence decreased from 20-40% down to 5% in a single season without the use of chemical fungicides. This isn’t to say that breeding is not important or needed – it is. However, it's not always going to be the most sustainable intervention, and a plant’s full genetic potential depends on adequate nutrition and healthy soil.

@JindalGlobalUNI @uofg @UofGPresident @DanielAtlin Thank you to Vice-Chancellor Kumar and all the team at @JindalGlobalUNI for the warm welcome and fruitful conversations.

We welcome the delegation from @uofg on 17th Feb, at #JGU for intellectual and academic interactions with the VC Dr. C Raj Kumar, Senior Deans and Academics. Our highly esteemed delegates are @UofGPresident , Prof @DanielAtlin and Dr. @stuartmccook

@BrownKnowser Yay!

Grad students: are you writing a diss that touches upon rural or agricultural history in any time or place? Please apply to share your work at the @AgHistorySoc's 2023 Graduate Workshop, in June. $$$ for travel & best paper. Deadline is Nov. 1. Details @ aghistorysociety.org/graduate-works…

One of the best parts of teaching is working with bright graduate students like @botanyandbeans, who wrote her MA thesis on the recovery of Puerto Rico's coffee industry after Hurricane Maria. She summarizes this research in a recent post on @IICA news. Way to go, Justina!

I wrote a blog article that was just published by @IICAnews! blog.iica.int/en/blog/coffee… (Based on my MA research conducted under supervision of @stuartmccook and @Silviasarapura1 and updated to reflect current situation)

@agecprof This never happens. You will never feel this. That’s a utopian fantasy.

@DJMontao1 @PretelDavid @ViridianaHF @SOLCHAred @StandUgr That was a fantastic session! Aprendí muchísimo de las charlas. Ojalá que la próxima vez (porque tiene que haber una próxima vez) podremos conversar en persona.

@ViridianaHF @DJMontao1 That was a fantastic presentation, Viridiana! Aprendi mucho, y veo muchos paralelos entre el cultivo del aguacate, del café, y del cacao. Tenemos que conversar!

@DJMontao1 @stuartmccook It was a pleasure to present my work in this panel with an impressive group of scholars. Disfruté y aprendí mucho de sus presentaciones. Ojalá se repita pronto en persona!

@TRyanGregory @seassenor @TRyanGregory I haven't forgiven myself either 😢☕️

@seassenor I still haven't forgiven @stuartmccook. goodreads.com/en/book/show/4…

State of the world checklist, May 2022: ✅ Raging pandemic ✅ Global climate crisis ✅ Prospect of world / nuclear war ✅ Nazis ✅ Removal of reproductive rights 🔲 Worldwide famine 🔲 Alien invasion 🔲 Robot uprising 🔲 Murder hornets 2.0

@NiCHE_Canada @eventbrite That would be great, thanks!

@stuartmccook @eventbrite Would you like us to publish an announcement for this event on our website, @stuartmccook ?

The Guelph Institute for Environmental Research welcomes Prof. John McNeill (Georgetown) for an online talk "The Earth's New Epoch: Anthropocene Debates and Anthropocene Working Group." April 29, 1-2pm EDT. Open to all! eventbrite.ca/e/the-earths-n… @Eventbrite #envhist #envhum

Join in ONE WEEK us to hear from environmental historian, Dr. John McNeill, about his work making the case for #TheAnthropocene as a new geologic epoch! Register for FREE: uoguel.ph/earthsnewepoch

@BrownKnowser Happy birthday, my older and wiser friend.

#InnovationAtUofG | Dr. Stuart McCook’s book Coffee Is Not Forever traces the full history of coffee leaf rust disease, including where it began and how it embedded itself in the world’s coffee-growing regions. Learn more: uoguel.ph/fos87

The Adventures in Coffee podcast interviewed me for their episode on coffee in Sri Lanka past and present. Check out "Coffee's Ticking Time Bomb" by Filter Productions via #spreaker spreaker.com/user/filtersto…

@BrownKnowser Happy New Year, buddy! Our day sounds pretty similar. Some writing, putting around the house, and being happily lazy and unproductive.

@gabrielasotolav @AgHistorySoc @CGIAR @HAHR21 @DJMontao1 @icarindia @SocHistTech We need more stories like this! I'm looking forward ot reading this.

Just out! "Beyond Borlaug's Shadow" examines how Octavio Paz's India memos and histories of Indian and Mexican farmers offers a retelling of the Green Revolution and technology transfer @AgHistorySoc @CGIAR @HAHR21 @DJMontao1 @icarindia @SocHistTech

@BrownKnowser @OttawaMorning @Bridgehead Thanks! The interview was fun to do, and @Bridgehead is, of course, fantastic.