Coffee production in Indonesia will plummet this year due to bad weather conditions.

Indonesia, the world's fourth-largest coffee producer, is second only to Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia, but its farmers are less productive than their competitors, DCN reported. And the weather and climate problems are serious. In East Java, production has dropped sharply due to chronic water shortage, which leads to undernutrition of fruits and attracts pests. And the increasingly frequent extreme weather may pose a challenge to the viability of some small farmers in the lowlands of Indonesia, and Bing expects production to fall by more than 20% this quarter.

One of the producers said that coffee fields on the slopes of eastern Java, Indonesia, would produce about 2.5 metric tons of coffee beans in a quarter in good weather, but this year, production is expected to be less than one tonne. Over the past 2020-2022, Indonesia has been affected by La Nina climate to cause extreme rainfall, and long periods of torrential rain can easily flood coffee flowers before they bear fruit. La Nina then turned into El Ni ñ o, with a severe drought in 2023, while persistent drought and lack of water led to stunted coffee flowers and withered leaves.

As a result, Indonesia recorded nearly 12 million bags of 60 kg coffee production during the 2022 and 2023 seasons, but as the current El Ni ñ o continues and causes high fever in low-lying coffee-growing areas, total coffee production is expected to plummet to less than 10 million bags this year, and this year's coffee harvest is expected to be the lowest in more than a decade.

In addition, due to extreme weather and supply shortages caused by drought, the price of rice, a staple in Indonesia, has soared, and the rise in food prices has prompted farmers to participate more in rice cultivation. And because of the bad weather, many coffee trees are deteriorated and difficult to recover and need to be replanted. However, official data show that in recent years, farmers have replanted only a few coffee trees in Indonesia, which also limits the ability to produce high yields.

And research shows that climate change may reduce the amount of land available for coffee cultivation in Indonesia by 21-37%. In addition, Indonesia has a population of 276 million, but coffee farmers are much less productive than neighboring Vietnam, which produces nearly three times more coffee than Indonesia. Many farmers believe that the main reason is that the government has done too little to support coffee agriculture, and the prices of chemical fertilizers are scarce and high.

Moreover, experts at the Indonesian Coffee and Cocoa Research Center say El Ni ñ o will have a positive impact on Indonesia's high-altitude coffee-growing areas, but for low-altitude areas and forests, high temperatures and droughts can have devastating consequences. In addition, according to Indonesia's national meteorological agency BMKG, El Ni ñ o will last until around April 2024. This worries the farmers and is expected to halve the coffee harvest this year.