Widespread rain to hit Brazil coffee and sugar

Widespread rain will intensify through the week over Brazil's main coffee and sugar cane areas, which will help improve output from both crops next year but will slow the final leg of the 2013 cane crush, meteorologists Somar said on Monday. On Thursday alone, as much as 35 millimetres (1 inch) are expected to fall in most coffee and cane areas in the main producing states of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, Somar forecaster Celso Oliveira said.
"Southern Minas will get accumulations of 50 millimetres through the week and the cane regions in northern Sao Paul in the Ribeirao Preto area will get 30 to 50 millimetres," he said.