The three-day occasion backed a motion to avoid wasting a Brazilian espresso genetic financial institution that’s presently below menace.

BY ISABELLE MANI
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE

Featured picture courtesy of Brazil Specialty Espresso Affiliation

The Agronomic Institute of Campinas (IAC), a key participant in world espresso genetic analysis, is dealing with a grave menace: The São Paulo State Authorities is planning to promote a 17-acre space that homes Brazil’s most distinguished espresso germplasm financial institution—one of many world’s most important espresso genetic banks. Espresso scientists on the IAC, São Paulo metropolis council members, and notable business figures have joined forces to dam the sale via petitions and a broad marketing campaign, together with a petition that supporters across the globe can signal. 

In a strategic act of solidarity, the 2025 version of the Brazil Brewers Cup, which befell on March 20-22, was held on the IAC’s predominant constructing in downtown Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. For finalist Renan Dantas, who represented Dantas Café, the occasion’s function went far past competitors. “The barista group gathering right here is an act of resistance on behalf of the whole Brazilian espresso chain,” he says.

Co-organizer and emcee of the occasion Mariana Proença echoes Renan’s sentiments, explaining the significance of internet hosting the occasion on the IAC constructing. “Selecting this venue was intentional. We needed to spotlight the (Brazilian) Brewers Cup as a platform to rally public help for preserving the IAC genetic financial institution and safeguarding a long time of indispensable espresso analysis,” Mariana says.

The winner of this 12 months’s Brazil Brewers Cup was Sabino Roasters’ Thiago Sabino, a first-timer to the Brewers Cup who has beforehand earned titles in Brazil’s Espresso in Good Spirits and Barista Championship occasions. Thiago’s participation within the 2025 Brewers Cup was important, marking his return to competitors after a seven-year hiatus. “Being right here within the very institute that made a lot of Brazil’s espresso historical past attainable is extremely highly effective,” he shared in his profitable speech.

When their names had been introduced, all semifinalists had been handed a seedling of an IAC-curated cultivar espresso plant by the researchers themselves: a shifting reminder of the ability of group.

A mini-fest that includes aspect points of interest additionally unfolded all through the three-day occasion, infusing the championship with a way of heat, open dialogue, and connection.

Mini-Fest Points of interest: Extra Occasion Highlights

One of many highlights of the mini-fest portion of the occasion was a cupping session that includes IAC-developed genetic supplies curated by the Institute’s Specialty Espresso analysis division. Amongst them was an improved collection of Laurina—a cultivar naturally low in caffeine. This model, branded “low-caf“ by its producer Da Terra, an IAC analysis accomplice, just lately gained worldwide traction and is championed amongst roasters like Berlin’s The Barn. 

One other spotlight of the occasion was a tour via the institute’s gardens and iconic Artwork Deco buildings, guided by Francisco “Chico” de Assis Leitão de Moraes, one of many IAC’s longest-serving workers members. Based in 1887 below Emperor Dom Pedro II, the IAC is the second-oldest agronomic analysis institute on the earth and holds an unbelievable array of Brazilian flora, boasting greater than 500 tree species.

Guests—myself included—weren’t solely impressed by the variety of the flora and the fascinating tales behind their arrival within the gardens, vividly advised by Chico himself, but additionally the grand structure and the institute’s storied previous, which as soon as drew high-profile friends like Queen Elizabeth II. 

Curious contributors requested why analysis funding had declined, particularly for the reason that institute employed round 3,500 workers in its prime however fewer than 500 stay right now, divided among the many predominant campus and two satellite tv for pc analysis farms. On the IAC, the depletion of personnel and operational funding has been ongoing for greater than a decade. 

Lately, the state authorities has intensified efforts to denationalise public lands and introduced plans to chop 30% of total funding in scientific analysis.

A Future at Danger

With an estimated 5,000 genetic accessions, a lot of them uncommon or endangered, the IAC’s germplasm financial institution ranks among the many largest globally. It additionally incorporates the oldest recognized inhabitants of cloned arabica espresso crops, together with many which will now not exist of their unique Ethiopian areas attributable to struggle and deforestation for the reason that Sixties.

A groundbreaking partnership with the U.S. authorities within the Nineteen Fifties enabled the IAC to gather and safeguard greater than 500 espresso varieties from Ethiopia, Kenya, India, and Central America, additional cementing the germplasm financial institution’s irreplaceable standing. Scientists warn that promoting this land might undermine Brazil’s potential to handle local weather change challenges and develop resilient espresso varieties.

Helena Dutra Lutgens, president of the Affiliation of Scientific Researchers of the State of São Paulo, decried the deliberate sale as a “populist maneuver by a authorities in ideological regression.”

She references Governor Tarcísio de Freitas, who has brazenly admitted he doesn’t grasp the germplasm financial institution’s significance. “Analysis and preservation ought to be expanded, not diminished,” Helena says, “particularly given right now’s escalating local weather challenges.“

The IAC’s Legacy

For greater than a century, the IAC has formed Brazilian espresso manufacturing, with roughly 90% of the nation’s arabica crop tracing again to its breeding work. One among its key cultivars is Catuaí, a cross between Mundo Novo and Caturra, which was developed within the Forties and formally launched in 1968. Compact and extremely productive, Catuaí thrives not solely in Brazil however throughout Central America, the place it stays central to espresso producers (notably in Honduras) due to its compatibility with dense planting.

Since its inception within the Twenties, the IAC has fostered worldwide collaborations, guiding every thing from breeding packages to sustainable farming approaches. As local weather change and rising illnesses threaten world espresso yields, IAC’s work stays invaluable, highlighting the urgent want to guard this vital scientific heritage.

“Each cup we get pleasure from right now has turn into attainable due to the tireless efforts of scientists and researchers, who paved the way in which for the standard of the espresso all of us eat right now,” Renan says.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Isabelle Mani (she/her) is a author, journalist, and communicator specializing within the worldwide espresso business. Since 2017, she has targeted on writing articles and options for numerous worldwide espresso information shops. Isabelle has traveled to coffee-producing international locations similar to Colombia, Kenya, Rwanda, China, and Brazil to check and analysis espresso. She holds coaching certifications from the Specialty Espresso Affiliation (SCA) and the Espresso High quality Institute (Arabica Q Grading).

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