A new enemy has appeared and has begun to do battle with farmers all over Latin America. The attack may squander the United States' coffee supply, with the potential to prompt price hikes as well as cause social upheavals.

Coffee rust, otherwise known as roya in Spanish, has reappeared in the coffee farms and plantations all the way down to Peru. According to BBC News, the fungus, known by its scientific name as hemileia vastatrix, is a natural enemy of the Arabica coffee plant, which is most abundant in Central America. Arabica is used to make espresso and filter coffee and makes up most of the produce from Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, and Panama.

The International Coffee Organization said that this is projected to be the worst epidemic since the fungus was introduced to the area in 1976. In 2013, BBC News notes that production fell 20 percent. However, the U.S. has joined the fight against roya.

According to the AP, the rust has caused an estimated $1 billion worth of damages but the United States will be helping the farmers curb the fungus' spread to prevent the loss of jobs as well as keep coffee prices down. The government announced a partnership with Texas A&M University's World Coffee Research that would spend $5 million to find a way to eliminate the fungus.

"We are concerned because we know coffee rust is already causing massive amounts of devastation," said Raj Shah, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

However, the United States government is not simply worried about rising prices. The government estimates a loss of between 15 to 40 percent of production in the next couple of years, which would mean the potential loss of half a million jobs. The coffee in this region is cultivated usually in small plots by family operations, which are too poor to use fungicides. However, this area generates the best and priciest coffee.

If these jobs are lost, the government fears the people will turn to cultivating plants for the drug trade or just join the cartels outright, exacerbating the violent situation in the region, reports the AP. However, there is another issue at hand. The loss of so many jobs or the potential increase in drug violence may increase immigration to the U.S. from these regions. An increase in people crossing the border, both legally and illegally, could derail the immigration talks constantly postponed by Congress. 

Overall, USAID has pledged $14 million to fight roya, including the money used with Texas A&M. In a statement, the organization said it is "providing a regional emergency coffee coordinator to assist with regional coordination and disseminate best practices to combat rust; helping to develop a coffee pest early warning system to help predict and mitigate future outbreaks; working with regional and global partners to identify and disseminate the most effective mitigation strategies; collaborating with international financial institutions and coffee companies to develop new financing opportunities for replanting coffee trees with improved coffee varieties."