Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
Has the price of your morning coffee crept up again?
Now, look thousands of kilometers away to an ocean warming toward what may be the strongest El Nino on record.
Of course, no, it's not your barista who is tracking it.
But maybe in a few months' time,
that heat could reach the farms behind your coffee, your chocolate, even the rubber in your tires.
And the people deciding how hard it hits aren't necessarily meteorologists.
They're negotiators now in Armenia.
Arguing over money and nature.
Coming to you from our studios here in Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm Fei Fei, and for today's discussion, I'm joined by Steve Heatherly and Yuxuan.
Every car has a shock absorber, and so does the global food system.
They have warehouses, stockpile, healthy forests, farmers with savings, and a wide variety of crops.
But some of these cushions are wearing thin.
For example, exchange warehouses holding benchmark Arabica coffee beans have fallen to around 220,000 bags.
That is the lowest since the year 2000. And now into that comes a super El Nino, possibly the stronger ever recorded.
It's a bump in the road, yes, but the real question is how much suspension we have left.
And I know coffee is only like a small part in our diets, but what about wheat?
Rice and so many other crops facing the same threat.