BOGOTA – Colombia recorded a 28% increase in coffee production on year during the first three months of 2014, according to the latest monthly report from the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC).
This translates to an additional 600,000 bags of coffee produced during the first three months of 2014.
The Federation also noted that over the last 12 months Colombian coffee production has increased by a full 40%.
Total coffee produced increased by 3.3 million bags over this period, to 11.4 million 132 pound bags.
Additionally, Colombian coffee exports showed a correlating 37% increase over the last 12 months. Colombia exported 10.4 million of the 132 pound bags, up 2.8 million bags from the same period in 2013.
These production and export increases do not, however, reflect an increase in profitability for small and medium scale coffee growers.
Despite a brief rise in prices during the first months of 2014, internal Colombian coffee prices saw over a week of daily price drops at the end of March. Continued losses caused Coffee Grower’s Dignity (Dignidad Cafetera), a Colombian coffee union, to announce its intent to strike beginning April 28.
According to the FNC, Thursday’s internal coffee price was at about $350 for a 275 pound bag. A spokesman for Coffee Growers Dignity Victor Correa told Colombia Reports last month that production costs ran about $320-340 for a 275-pound bag of coffee.
For much of the last year internal coffee prices fell below $340, representing a loss on every bag sold for Colombia’s coffee growers.
In August last year a 275-pound bag fell to $319, a five-year low. This translated to a $24 dollar loss on every bag of coffee sold, according to Correa.
Correa added that for growing coffee to remain profitable for the farmers the internal cost of a 275-bag must be at least $500. This means that even during March’s high of $425 coffee farmers were not making enough money to support themselves.
Some coffee farmers had already sold their harvests by the time prices began to be profitable as well.
