By Heather Walsh
Bloomberg
May 10, 2010
Colombian coffee growers said production surged 88 percent in April as the crop recovered from a slump last year.
Output rose to 647,000 bags, the highest level since February, from 345,000 bags in the year-earlier period after weather improved, Colombia’s National Federation of Coffee Growers said today in an e-mail statement.
“Colombian coffee production has started to recover lost ground,” the federation said.
Colombia, the world’s second-largest supplier of mild- tasting Arabica beans after Brazil, will increase its crop by 6.1 percent in the first six months of the year, according to the federation’s forecast.
Colombian output will climb in May and June, bringing production in the first six months to 4.50 million bags from 4.24 million bags in the same period the prior year. The federation reiterated its forecast made last month. A bag weighs 60 kilograms (132 pounds).
Arabica coffee has slipped 2.8 percent in five sessions, the seventh-worst performance among 22 commodities tracked by the Bloomberg CRR Futures List.
Arabica-coffee futures for July delivery gained 0.6 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $1.3450 a pound at 11:34 a.m. New York time.
For the year, the harvest will rise to between 10 million and 11 million bags, from 7.8 million bags in 2009, the group said last week. Production tumbled 32 percent last year as above-average rainfall battered the crop.
In April, exports of the bean slipped 4 percent to 528,000 bags from 550,000 bags from the year-ago period, the group said.
-----
Editors: Robin Saponar, Jessica Brice
To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Heather Walsh at hlwalsh@bloomberg.net
To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net
No comments:
Post a Comment
Join the conversation