Coffee harvest in Brazil drops by 24.4% in 2021 amid drought -Conab

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (Reuters) Brazil’s coffee harvest totaled 47.7 million bags this year, down 24.4% from the record output recorded in 2020, the government’s statistics, and food supply agency Conab said Thursday, noting that production was hit hard by drought.

Despite the year-on-year drop, Conab’s new estimate beat its September forecast of 46.9 million bags, as the impact of frost was less than initially expected.

Conab estimated the country’s arabica coffee crop, which is in the bad year of its biennial production cycle, at 31.4 million bags, down 35.5% from 2020. The robusta crop was estimated at 16.3 million bags, up 13.8%.

The state agency also said that the total coffee planted in Brazil fell 4% from the previous crop to 1.8 million hectares, also due to excessive drought.

Conab’s new crop report, based on data collected in November, was the first since the end of the harvest in Brazil, which is the world’s largest coffee producer.

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