The coffee harvest in Brazil has progressed well last week, taking advantage of the drier weather in coffee-growing regions of the country. But the rain must return, weak and spotty and followed by declining temperatures in coffee areas of Paraná, São Paulo, and southern Minas Gerais. And this may interfere a little with the progress of the harvest over the next few days. But in general terms, the climate has favored the coffee harvest and drying. Even so, work is still behind schedule, especially compared to the five-year average.
Physical availability also remains lower than expected in trading regions, which intensifies the debate about an arabica crop lower than preliminary projections. The information that comes from the crop points to very good quality in terms of cup and grain size, but with productivity below that initially expected by growers. This could lead to a downward revision in the number of Brazil’s 2022 crop.
It is worth noting that the initial basis for comparison is the record crop reaped in 2020 and that the forecasts for Brazil’s 2022 season already included losses due to last year’s drought and frost. In addition, the slower processing and, especially, the shorter stance of growers, who are holding sales, help to explain the low physical availability. In any case, the tight supply draws attention and puts in check the size of Brazil’s 2022 crop. If the crop is much smaller than initially expected, the balance of domestic prices may be affected, helping to support the physical market.
SAFRAS indicates that until July 26, Brazil reaped 75% of the 22/23 coffee crop, which corresponds to an advance of 9% compared to last week. And with that, nearly 45.93 million bags have already been reaped from the production preliminarily estimated at 61.10 million bags. Despite the good progress, work is still below the same time last year, when growers had reaped 77% of the crop, and also below the five-year average for the period, which is around 80%.
The arabica harvest is 66% complete, in line with the same period last year, but still below the 73% five-year average for the period. The conillon harvest is 90% complete, still below the 94% in the same period last year and the 96% five-year average for the period. In Espírito Santo, the main producing state of this coffee, the large majority of small farmers have already finished the harvest. The whole harvest is expected to be completed within 10 to 15 days. In Rondônia, the harvest is practically finished.