Skip to main content

Brazil’s coffee growers accelerate harvesting after dry weather



By Isis Almeida
Bloomberg

June 7, 2013

Coffee growers in Brazil, the world’s largest producer, accelerated harvesting of this year’s crop as dry weather returned to producing regions this week, according to Rio de Janeiro-based broker Flavour Coffee.

Growing areas will get dry weather for an extended period starting June 5, Sao Paulo-based weather forecaster Somar Meteorologia said in a report e-mailed on June 3. There was “abnormal rain” in the beginning of this month, it said. Brazil is harvesting its 2013-14 crop and production will be a record for a year in which trees enter the lower-yielding half of a two-year cycle, the government estimates.

“Farmers accelerated the picking, taking advantage of this ideal weather, sunny, dry and warm temperatures during day light,” Flavour Coffee said in a weekly report e-mailed yesterday. “The whole Brazilian coffee belt from Parana until Bahia is in full harvesting activities.”

Brazil will produce 48.6 million bags of coffee in 2013, the government’s crop-forecasting agency known as Conab said on May 14. Production of arabicas, favored by Starbucks Corp. (SBUX), will total 36.4 million bags, while output of robusta, used in instant coffee, will be 12.2 million bags.

Brazilian arabica beans of fine-cup quality for shipment in July and August were at a discount of 12 cents a pound to the price on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange in New York, compared with 10 cents a pound a week earlier, data from the broker showed. Beans for shipment from September onward were at a discount of 16 cents a pound, unchanged from a week earlier.

Good Cup

Coffee of good-cup quality for shipment in July and August was at a discount of 17 cents a pound compared with 15 cents a pound last week, according to Flavour Coffee. Good-cup beans for shipment from September onward were at a discount of 20 cents a pound from 19 cents a pound last week. Fine cup coffee is usually more expensive because of its taste.

“The demand that is coming from overseas still was concentrated for new crop shipments,” Thiago Cazarini, a broker at Cazarini Trading Co., a broker in Varginha, Brazil, said in a separate report e-mailed yesterday. Varginha is a city in Minas Gerais, Brazil’s largest arabica-producing state.

Conillons, as Brazilian robusta beans are known, were trading at a premium of 10 cents a pound ($220 a metric ton) to the price on NYSE Liffe in London for shipments in June and July, unchanged from last week, Flavour Coffee data showed.

“Premiums remain too high, attracting no buyers,” Flavour Coffee said, referring to Brazilian robusta coffee.

Robusta for delivery in July was little changed at $1,863 a ton by 11:51 a.m. in London. Arabica for July delivery fell 0.4 percent to $1.29 a pound in New York.
---------
To contact the reporter on this story: Isis Almeida in London at Ialmeida3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at Ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net.

Popular posts from this blog

Ethiopian Coffee & Tea Authority Relaxes Coffee Export Restrictions

  Ethiopian Coffee & Tea Authority Relaxes Coffee Export Restrictions  Addis Fortune November 14, 2020 Coffee traders can now send all grades of coffee beans to the global market, in contrast to the previous law that allowed them only to export the top four grades of coffee, according to a new directive issued by the Ethiopian Coffee & Tea Authority. Farmers and exporters can also directly ship the beans without going through the trading floors of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX). The new scheme allows fifth grade and under grade (UG) coffee beans, which up until now have only been supplied to the local market, to be exported. Coffee quality experts at respective regional offices of the Authority will determine the grade of the coffee. The Authority at its head office issues permits to the exporters every year, while regional offices are delegated to grant export permit to farmers who have at least two hectares of farmland. The Authority sets standard prices on a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Climate-hit Ethiopia shifts coffee uphill

Caffeine high? Climate-hit Ethiopia shifts coffee uphill Elias Gebreselassie Thomson Reuters Foundation June 3, 2018 HAMBELA, Ethiopia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Few countries take coffee as seriously as Ethiopia - and that’s not only because it prides itself as being the source of the prized Arabica bean. But rising temperatures and worsening drought linked to climate change are now hitting production - and fixing that may require moving many Ethiopian coffee fields uphill, experts say. Aside from its cultural value, coffee is Ethiopia’s single largest source of export revenue, worth more than $860 million in the 2016-2017 production year. But coffee-growing areas in eastern Ethiopia have seen the average temperature climb 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past three decades, according to the Environment, Climate Change and Coffee Forest Forum (ECCCFF), an Ethiopian non-governmental organization. That has caused stronger drought ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The saga of the Starbucks-Ethiopia affair

Note :   The most recent developments on Starbucks vs. Ethiopia are listed below: January 9, 2012:  Has trademarking doubled Ethiopian farmers' income?   January 5, 2012:   Starbucks to showcase use of a QR code to trace Organic Ethiopia Sidamo® Coffee   ========= "When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. When the same two elephants make love, the grass still suffers." - derivative of an old African saying Life, before and after the agreement, remains unaffected for farmer Gemede Robe, the icon of the Starbucks vs. Ethiopia dispute. He lives in the Borena zone of the Oromia region, one of the many coffee growing zones of the country. (Photo: Courtesy of Oxfam America) By Wondwossen Mezlekia May 31, 2010 The coffee trademark dispute between Starbucks and Ethiopia officially ended exactly three years ago. In June 2007, the giant coffee chain and the government of Ethiopia declared their agreement "to work together to license...
Read more