Farmers see worrying signs on the feet of coffee Brazilians, weakened by more than two years of frosts and droughts, which will require much more than an improvement in the climate to replenish the dwindling stocks of grains.
Although the September rains helped the flowering to start the new harvest season, coffee growers are concerned about what they have seen so far.
Some coffee trees are losing their leaves, while others have produced unusually shaped flowers.
Some fruits fell to the ground before they had a chance to grow.
“The plant has a good memory,” said Éder Ribeiro dos Santos, an agronomist at the cooxupéthe largest coffee cooperative in Brazil.
“She writes down in her notebook everything she has suffered in the last two seasons and now she comes to collect the bill.”
The world’s largest coffee producer, the Brazil has just concluded a poor harvest, which should bring stocks to an all-time low.
That’s bad news for those who rely on a caffeine fix to start their day.
Global supply shortages drive coffee futures contracts and contribute to inflation From foods.
Adverse weather conditions in several countries also put pressure on total stocks, while the La Niña phenomenon threatens production in the Colombiathe second largest coffee producer in the world.
In a coffee plantation, the coffee trees in bloom showed so many signs of damage that experts did not want to make a forecast of production this season.
“Agronomists don’t even want to give me an estimate of my production, simply because there’s a lot we can’t know,” said Sergio Castejon, who has a farm in Monte Santo de Minas, in Minas Gerais.
The lingering effects of drought and frost are expected throughout the 2023 season, because coffee trees need time to recover, said Cláudio Pagotto Ronchi, a professor at the University of Viçosa who specializes in plant physiology.
Frequent rains are expected for the next few months, one less worry for coffee growers, said Marco Antonio dos Santos, meteorologist at Rural Clima.
Faced with the end of the drought, the president of Cooxupé, Carlos Augusto Rodrigues de Melo, is optimistic that, even with the problems reported so far, the next harvest will be better than the two previous ones.
At the end of the 2022 harvest, the cooperative was able to harvest around 6 million bags of 60 kilos, both from members and third parties, a level similar to that of 2021, but lower than the 8 million in the last good harvest of 2020.
The newly completed season was supposed to be a high-yield cycle, but production was reduced by the severe drought.
Despite the arrival of the necessary rains, coffee growers can still expect weather-related challenges.
Higher temperatures and greater extremes between highs and lows become an ongoing challenge due to climate change.
Uncertainties require constant monitoring and investment at a time when farmers are struggling to spend.
“I made investments in the past that were lost, because production was very affected by the weather,” Castejon said.
“It’s hard to say, but maybe I don’t have the resources to do what’s needed right now.”
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Source: Moneytimes
I am a journalist with over 6 years of experience working in the news industry. I currently work as an author for Global Happenings, and my coverage focuses on Technology news. I have written for various publications, including Reuters, The New York Times and The Guardian.
