Sales of Brazil's 2014/2015 coffee crop were well ahead of the previous year in February, less than two months away from harvesting the crop, local commodities analysts Safras e Mercado said on Thursday. Total sales of the new crop in Brazil, which Safras estimates at 52.9 million 60-kg bags, had reached 77 percent by the end of February, up from 71 percent this time last year.
Sales are slightly behind the 80 percent average sold in February over the last five years, however. All of the additional selling has been in the future arabica crop, with 77 percent of it sold for future delivery, compared with 69 percent of last year's crop a year ago. Conillon beans, a local variety of robusta coffee, are 78 percent sold, unchanged from a year ago but slightly behind the 82 percent average for this time of year, Safras data showed. Conillon goes primarily to supply the domestic market.
Brazil's main coffee belt has been hit hard by a drought over the past few months that has shaved 11 percent from the crop's potential, according to a poll of market specialists by Reuters this month. Rainfall has improved and temperatures eased in recent weeks over the coffee belt, but analysts and producers say this will only keep the situation from getting worse. Most of the damages already caused by the lack of rain are irreversible.
Weather will turn drier, however, for the next 10 days in coffee-producing regions, local weather forecaster Somar said. The new crop in Minas Gerais, the state that accounts for half of Brazil's coffee output, is 78 percent sold, up from 69 percent last year but lagging the 80 percent on average for February, Safras said.
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