MILAN – Brazil’s coffee crop 2014/15 will come in between 40.1 million bags to 43.3 according to an estimate from Fundaçao Procafe, a coffee research foundation based in Varginha, Minas Gerais. The study was commisioned by Brazil’s National Coffee Council.
If this pessimistic scenario is to be confirmed, this would be the lowest crop since 2009, when the country harvested 39.47 million bags according to Brazil’s government-controlled crop forecasting agency Conab.
Unfortunately, prospects are not much better for the following crop year, says Procafe.
Damages caused by this year’s unprecedented drought (the worst on record in more than 80 years) will take a serious toll even on the next crop season. In fact, coffee production in 2015/16 is forecast by Procafe to be in a range between 38.7 and 43.6 million bags.
In other news, Brazil’s coffee stocks are expected to fall to 11.5 million 60-kg bags by July 1st, 18% down on year, according to an estimate issued on Wednesday by Santos-based traders and exporters Comexim.
On July 1, 2013, when the official crop year rolled over, stocks were estimated at about 14 million bags – 12.36 million in private hands and 1.65 million in government stocks, Comexim said in its stocks estimate that it releases twice a year.
Brazil, the world’s largest producer and exporter of coffee, has already started isolated harvesting of its new crop, though the full harvesting effort doesn’t start until late May.
Even with a significant drop in Brazil’s coffee output, the South American country will not run out of coffee to ship to global buyers.
Albeit diminished, stocks are still sufficient. Brazil harvested 49.8 million bags from the last crop, according to Comexim.
If not for the drought, the country would have produced a crop around 10 percent bigger or more this season.
