Colombia, one of the world's top coffee exporters, may have to wait four more years to recover output to historical levels when renovated trees reach full production, the coffee federation said on Thursday The world's biggest producer of high-quality Arabica beans has seen a lag in coffee output since 2009 when bad weather, fungus and a tree renovation program cut output from the capacity of 11 million 60-kg sacks annually.
"If Colombia continues at this rhythm, renovating more than 100,000 hectares annually, we think we will be able to change the productive structure of the country," federation chief Luis Genaro Munoz told Reuters in an interview. "In four years, more or less, we will have 90 percent of the planted crop ... better adapted to climatic change, excessive humidity, and that is surely the secret to allow Colombia to recover its historic volumes of around 11 million sacks, and maybe even take a path to higher production," he said.
Coffee production slumped to 7.8 million bags last year - its worst crop since the 1970s - as torrential rains across the Andean country prevented crucial sunlight from reaching plants and affected flowering. That was the third consecutive year when coffee production came under the federation's official goal - low availability of high-quality beans such as those produced in Colombia has helped boost world Arabica prices. Munoz did not give a production target for this year but said the crop would be at similar levels to 2011 or a little better. The federation expects to give an estimate for 2012 output in February, he said. "The year started under very adverse conditions," he said.
"In the first half of the year, we'll see flowerings from what happened in the last months of last year when there was no sunshine and there was excess rain, and that's obviously going to mortify the production and productivity." Too much rain damages key flowering stages, knocks beans off trees and washes away roads that are the only way the product can get to ports - the United States and Japan are the main destinations for Colombia's beans. About 300,000 of the 917,000 hectares planted with coffee are being renovated and therefore out of production, he said. New trees usually start producing in the second year and enter into full-production by the fourth or fifth year.
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