Colombia sees coffee output rises to 12.5-13 million bags

Colombia expects coffee output to increase this year to between 12.5 and 13 million 60-kg sacks, as good weather and widespread replanting of aging and disease-prone trees boost production, the head of the coffee federation said on Thursday. Coffee output in the world's top producer of mild, washed arabica beans is expected to grow from 12.1 million sacks last year, when production also surged following four years of missing targets, Luis Genaro Munoz said in an interview.
Colombia's coffee sector is passing through a strong phase, Genaro said, as international prices rise along with an increase in global consumption and the local currency has weakened against the dollar, helping bolster overseas sales. "The harvest will be better than last year," Munoz told Reuters at his office in Bogota.
Production has steadily improved since the 2008-2009 period, when bad weather and a tree-killing fungus known as roya caused output to slump by nearly a third to 8.7 million bags. In response, the government encouraged farmers to uproot their plants, and introduced a new, roya-resistant variety called Castillo. Munoz said a decline in output from Brazil, the world's biggest coffee producer, along with lower supply from Mexico, Ecuador, Peru and Central America, have helped bolster exports of Colombian coffee, allowing it to recuperate some lost market share.
"Colombia has recovered its exports from eight million a few years ago to 12 million sacks and it has no inventories," Munoz said. "Bean produced, bean exported." Growing Colombia's prestigious high-altitude beans provides a livelihood for 560,000 families and offers important social cohesion in a country where a 50-year war with Marxist rebels has been fought mostly in rural areas. Munoz said the Andean country is among the best prepared to face a possible El Nino phenomenon that could bring lower harvests due to dry weather in growing zones.
Still, Colombia has planted varieties that can withstand climate change and in areas most prone to dry weather coffee bushes are planted beneath trees. El Nino, a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, can trigger both floods and drought around the globe. Munoz ruled out the idea that Colombia could start producing varieties of coffee like robusta. "For now Colombia has taken a firm decision to continue its strategy of producing the finest quality of coffee, the best coffee in the world."