“Central America is going to face two or three years of pain unless they can find the right varieties,” he said.

But finding the variety is just part of the equation. In order to make sure there was an adequate supply of Castillo seeds the Coffee Federation had to establish a network of quality-controlled seed farms. It also has an army of 1,500 agricultural extension workers who not only help farmers with technical details but also getting the bank loans they needed.

Luis Fernando Samper, head of communications for the Coffee Federation, likes to compare the process to an “orchestra.”

“If you have the money, do you have the variety? If you have the variety, do you have the seeds? If you have the seeds, how do you get them to the farms?” he asks. “Everything has to work together.”

But some worry that Central America doesn’t have the orchestra needed to stop roya.

Christian Wolthers is the founder and chief executive of Wolthers America, a Fort Lauderdale importer that brings in coffee from Central America, Brazil and Colombia. Early this year he traveled to Guatemala to visit local producers. He said of the 90,000 coffee farms in the country, fewer than 1 percent are medium or large. Of the estimated 89,700 small farms, about 90 percent had been hit by roya, he said.

Wolthers is expecting Guatemala coffee production to fall 15-20 percent this year and up to 50 percent next year.

“In Guatemala only half the farms will get some technical support and expertise through their cooperative connection,” he said. “The other half are just praying. They think this is God-sent and that God will either show them the way or solve the problem.”

Other Central American nations might also suffer from lack of well-funded organizations that can marshal a unified response.

The coffee crisis may be devastating for farmers, but the effects on U.S. consumers will be more subtle. While there won’t be a coffee shortage, some of the high quality, aromatic flavors from the region could be in short supply, said Spencer Turer, director of coffee operations at Coffee Analysts, which specializes in coffee testing laboratory services.

“Globally speaking there is enough Arabica to meet demand,” he said. “But are the coffees that are used by the U.S. trade going to be available? That’s the big question, and the higher up the quality chain you go, the bigger the question mark becomes.”

Organic farms have been particularly hard hit by roya, he said.

For the moment, Colombia seems to be on the other side of the crisis. Coffee production in April was up 85 percent versus the same month last year, and during the first four months of the year, production was up 41 percent. Last month, Colombia said it had been the first country in the Americas to be able to declare four of its coffee-growing municipalities free of roya.

As he walked around El Descanso farm, Samper, of the Coffee Federation, said most consumers are unaware about all the work that goes into making a cup of coffee.

“You might see the coffee plant,” he said “But you don’t’ see everything that went into making the coffee plant.”