SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - Costa Rican coffee farmers are facing threats from climate change but the rising temperatures are also expanding high-altitude regions where the country's most prized beans are grown.

In Costa Rica, the temperature increases may help transform mountainous land that was once too chilly for delicate coffee trees into prime coffee-planting territory.

"We can now plant at 2,000 meters (6,562 feet). We didn't plant there before," said Daniel Urena, an agronomist for the Coopedota coffee cooperative, which sells its high-altitude coffee to buyers such as Starbucks Corp.

But while farmers in Costa Rica's highlands maybe able to develop into new areas, climate change could bring blight to the crop with unseasonable dry spells, unusual cold snaps and more difficulties growing coffee at lower elevations.  Continued...