Poor Farmer

Reuters August 18, 2012 Aug 17 (Reuters) - Brazil's government and private banks look set to boost lending to coffee producers, the national coffee producers' association, CNC, said on Friday, to tide them over when they choose to defer sales in the hope of receiving a higher asking price later. The CNC said in an e-mailed bulletin that the government would vote at the end of August about adding 600 million reais ($297.10 million) to its Funcafe coffee loan program that would take its total funds this season to 1.8 billion reais. The association said private lenders had also expressed an interest in allocating more loans to coffee producers and estimated an additional 1.2 billion reais could be made available. If disbursed as the CNC hopes, the additional public and private funds would be enough to stock an additional four million bags of coffee or nearly a tenth of this year's harvest, should producers choose to use these credit lines. Brazil is t...

By Alexandra Wexler The Wall Street Journal August 17, 2012 NEW YORK—Arabica coffee futures sank 3.6% this past week, at one point settling at a nearly eight-week low as traders anticipated a glut of the beans from Brazil. Unseasonable rains in the top coffee-producing country earlier in the season prevented trucks and workers from getting into the fields, straining supplies and pushing arabica futures prices up 20% from mid-June to mid-July. Arabica, prized for its mild flavor, is often used in gourmet coffee blends. But after a recent bout of dry weather, the South American nation's harvest is nearing conclusion, knocking the wind out of the futures market. Brazil's 2012-13 coffee harvest was 80% complete as of Aug. 9, Brazilian agricultural consultancy Safras & Mercado said. "The thing that was holding the market up was weather, which really isn't there anymore," said Hector Galvan, senior analyst at R.J. O'Brien in Chicago. ...