The coffee harvest in Brazil maintains a good pace, favored by the dry climate and high percentage of maturation of crops. The forecast is that the weather will remain mostly dry for the next 7 to 10 days, with a chance of spotty rains only in Bahia and Espírito Santo. Finally, the climate scenario must continue to benefit the coffee harvest and drying. But even with the acceleration of work, the physical availability, particularly of arabica, remains below expectations, which maintains some concern over the production potential.
The greater slowness in processing and the growers’ decision to leave coffee longer in warehouses also help to explain the shorter supply. And the complaint of growers about production losses has slightly diminished, although this idea still prevails. Work has advanced over the past few weeks on crops with later maturity and is more concentrated on large growers. And this improvement in sentiment in the final stretch of the season helps to alleviate some of the initial pessimism. The coffees that are arriving at cooperatives, traders, and trading companies have good quality, especially in terms of cup and grain size.
The monitoring of SAFRAS indicates that, until August 2, Brazil harvested 83% of the 22/23 coffee season, up 8% from last week. As a result, nearly 50.96 mln bags have already been reaped from a crop preliminarily estimated at 61.10 mln bags. Despite the good progress, work is still slightly below the same time last year, when growers had reaped 84% of the crop, and even the 5-year average for the period, which is around 86% of production.
The arabica harvest reaches 77% of the expected production, slightly surpassing the 76% reaped in the same period last year, but still below the 81% 5-year average for the period. Work with conillon is coming to an end, reaching 94% of the crop potential. This is still below the 98% in the same period last year and the 99% 5-year average for the period. In Espírito Santo, the main producing state of this coffee, only large growers are yet to finish work. In Rondônia, the harvest takes its last steps. Brazil’s 2022 conillon crop has not only confirmed the good initial expectations, but some growers reveal a positive surprise with the result.