Friday, February 11, 2011

Shift north helps Brazil cut coffee harvest swings

by Agrimoney.com

It is not just the cycle of "on" and "off" years of coffee production that Brazil may be getting to grips with, but the risk of hefty bean losses to subzero temperatures too.
Global warming may have played a part in the waning danger that frost has posed to Brazil's coffee crops, the world's biggest, in the last decade, sector expert Carlos Brando said.
However, a shift north by farmers to warmer climes has worked in staving off the threat too, with Brazil now going some 15 years without major freeze damage.
"The major crop losses shown in the mid-1970s and 1990s are less likely to occur," Mr Brando, at Brazil-based P&A Marketing, said.
Brazil's production of arabica beans plunged by 60% to 9,000 bags in the frost-hit 1976-77 season, sending New York futures above 330 cents a pound.
Zero-crop harvesting
The migration in coffee plantations has further raised prospects of a less volatile outlook for Brazilian coffee output, which even without weather setbacks has historically alternated between high and low production years.
Besides the greater use of washing in processing beans - a practice which sees trees stripped earlier of cherries so increasing the recovery period - the cycle is also being reduced by the greater use of irrigation.
Watering helps trees "to recover faster and better from the stress of bearing a large crop", Mr Brando said.
The spread of so-called "zero-crop" harvesting, in which trees are pruned to produce beans only in the "off" year when prices are usually higher, has also dampened the cycle.
Deficit ahead 
Brazil faces an "off" season in 2011-12, although official forecasters have predicted a crop of 41.9m-44.7m bags, higher than that in many "on" years.
Nonetheless, information group CoffeeNetwork on Friday forecast that world coffee production would, at 131m bags, fall 4m bags behind consumption.
Arabica beans, the main variety produced in Brazil, would account for 3m bags of this deficit, CoffeeNetwork forecast.

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