Brazil Coffee Exports Plunge 31% in January

For two years, the world’s coffee buyers paid whatever Brazil asked. Now that prices are finally softening, Brazilian growers are responding not by selling more cheaply but by refusing to sell at all — and it is showing up in the export numbers. This is part of The Rio Times’ daily coverage of Latin American markets and financial news.

Brazil exported 2.78 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee in January, a 31% decline from the same month a year ago, according to data released Tuesday by the Brazilian Coffee Exporters Council (Cecafé).

Export revenues totaled $1.175 billion, down 12% year-on-year — a milder fall that reflects prices still well above historical averages, even after a sharp retreat that began in late January and accelerated into February.

The decline was broad. Arabica shipments fell 29% to 2.35 million bags, while robusta and conilon exports collapsed by 46% to just 182,000 bags. Processed coffee — soluble, roasted and ground — dropped 32% to 252,000 bags.

Cecafé president Márcio Ferreira attributed the pullback to a convergence of bearish signals. Expectations of a record 2026/27 harvest pushed arabica futures to a five-and-a-half-month low by late January, while a strengthening real against the dollar made exports less profitable in local currency terms.

Crucially, farmers who pocketed record earnings in 2024 and 2025 feel no financial pressure to lock in lower prices now. “Producers are capitalized from the good prices of recent years,” Ferreira said. “This is what is driving the sharp reduction in volumes, and it should continue until the next harvest.”

That next harvest is shaping up to be enormous. Conab’s first official forecast, published last week, projects Brazil will produce 66.2 million bags in 2026 — a 17% increase that would shatter the previous record of 63.1 million set in 2020.

Arabica output alone is expected to surge 23% to 44.1 million bags as the crop enters the high-yielding phase of its biennial cycle, supported by improved rainfall in Minas Gerais and expanded planting across São Paulo and Bahia.

The paradox for global coffee markets is stark. Global stocks sit near their lowest levels in 25 years, yet the world’s largest supplier is withholding beans in anticipation of a bumper crop that could flip the market from scarcity to surplus within months.

For roasters in Europe, Asia and the Americas already paying near-record prices, the January data offers a frustrating signal: relief is likely coming, but not before Brazilian farmers decide the next harvest is close enough to start letting go.

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