Brazilian crop agency Conab raised its estimate for the country’s 2014 coffee crop because of a bigger harvest of the robusta variety of the beans.
Brazil’s farmers are expected to produce 45.1 million 132-pound bags of coffee this year, Conab said in a report published Tuesday, up from the agency’s forecast of 44.6 million tons in May. Brazil grew 49.2 million bags of coffee in 2013.
Brazil is the world’s biggest producer and exporter of coffee, and the worst drought in decades earlier this year in the country’s most important coffee-producing state, Minas Gerais, has hurt plants and led to smaller and often deformed beans, farmers say.
Brazil will produce 32.1 million bags of arabica beans this year, Conab said, compared with 38.3 million bags in 2013. In May, the agency had forecast output of 32.2 million bags of arabica.
Conab in May raised its forecast for production of robusta beans to 13 million bags from 12.3 million. That would be a 20% increase from 2013, according to the agency.
Source: online.wsj.com/articles/brazil-raises-2014-coffee-crop-estimate-to-45-1-million-bags-1410877068
