Agencies affected by insufficient rainfall and insect pests downgrade coffee production forecasts in Brazil

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Cooxup é, the world's largest coffee cooperative, recently reported that it cut its forecast for coffee production in the southern state of Minas Gerais (Minas Gerais) from 17 million to 14 million packs (60 kilograms each), a 30 percent drop from last year, mainly due to insufficient rainfall and an outbreak of insect pests. The cooperative estimates that 480-4.9 million packets of coffee will be received from member producers this year, down from the original estimate of 5.6 million packets. The cooperative is also Brazil's largest coffee exporter.

The latest report from Safras & Mercado, a Brazilian consultancy, said that as of Aug. 15, the progress of the Brazilian coffee crop harvest in 2017 had reached 91%, an increase of 5% over the previous week. Among them, Robusta coffee has been harvested, while the harvest progress of Arabica coffee has increased to 88% from 82% of the previous week, compared with the five-year average of 82% for the same period.

Safras estimates that Brazil will produce 51.1 million packets of coffee this year, compared with a current harvest of 46.3 million packets. Safras analyst Gil Barabach said that the smooth progress of this year's harvest is mainly due to the impact of dry weather and favorable operations. However, also due to insufficient rainfall, coffee beans are generally small, which will also lead to a decline in the harvest, as more coffee beans will be needed to fill the 60-kilogram bag.

According to the monthly report of the International Coffee Organization (International Coffee Organization, ICO), the composite average price of ICO coffee rose 4 per cent to 127.26 cents per pound in July. Although the price of coffee fell to 122.71 cents in the first ten days, the price gradually recovered to 131.52 cents per pound at the end of the month, a three-month high. Among them, the average monthly price of Arabica coffee rose 4.5%, while the price of Robusta coffee rose 2.9%.

According to the ICO monthly report, global coffee exports increased by 5.7 per cent to 10.4 million bales in June 2017, and increased by 4.9 million bales or 5.9 to 87.4 million bales in the first nine months (October-June) of 2016 from October last year. ICO raised its forecast for global coffee production in 2016 to 153.9 million packets from 151.6 million, a record high and a 1.5 per cent increase over the previous year. Among them, Indonesia's production estimate is raised from 10 million to 11.5 million packets, Peru's production estimate is raised by 4.2 million packets, Arabica coffee production is expected to increase by 10.2% to 97.3 million packets per year, and Robusta coffee production is expected to increase by 10.6% to 56.6 million packets per year.