Brazilian coffee production to grow 7.9% in 2023

Brazil, the world’s largest producer and coffee exporter will harvest 54.94 million 50-kilo bags in this year’s crop, as disclosed Thursday by the state-owned National Supply Company (Conab).

“For the current harvest, although it is a negative biennial, the forecast is 7.9 percent higher compared to the total obtained in 2022, breaking the cycle of evolution of the series since the 2001 harvest, when Conab began monitoring the national coffee production,” said Conab president Guilherme Ribeiro.

Of the 54.94 million bags estimated, 37.44 million will be of arabica coffee, 14.4 percent more than that obtained in 2022.

In addition, 17.51 million bags of conillon coffee will be processed, representing a production 3.8 percent lower than the volume obtained in 2022.

“As for conillon, it is important to say that, after a record harvest, the outlook for this season points to a certain reduction in the productive potential due to the climatic adversities registered in the main producing state, Espírito Santo,” said the president of Conab.

For this year’s Brazilian coffee harvest, the total area of plantations will be 2.26 million hectares, which represents an increase of 0.8 percent in relation to the last harvest, Ribeiro said.

In 2022, the area allocated to coffee crops was 1.9 million hectares for production and 355,500 hectares in formation for subsequent production.

“In negative biennial cycles, producers usually carry out the most intense cultural treatments on crops, promoting some kind of management in their areas that will only come into production in the next few years,” highlighted the president of Conab.

He further explained that, due to the “very unfavorable” weather in 2021, many crops did not have good production in 2022, but “now, in 2023, this production will reach almost 100,000 hectares of crops.”

According to Conab’s Crop Monitoring manager, Rafael Fogaça, despite the prospect of an increase in the area under production, the expectation is that there will be a drop in the average yield compared to the previous harvest should “have an impact on the total production outlook”.