Heavy rains and pest attacks are likely to dash India's hopes of a rise in coffee output this year and peg it at about last year's level of 274,000 tonnes, industry officials said on Tuesday.
They said output in the year to March 2007 was likely to be 275,000 tonnes, 8.3 percent lower than earlier estimates for 300,000 tonnes. "This year the blossom shower was good. So we thought we will pick up a good crop," Bose Mandanna, director of Karnataka Coffee Brokers Private Ltd, told Reuters.
"Unfortunately, due to some delay in the backing shower and extra heavy rains during the monsoon, some decline in the coffee estimates seems to be there."
The blossom shower is the pre-monsoon rain in March. For a good crop it must be followed within 15-20 days by the back-up shower. Mandanna said the damp weather bred white stem borer pests which ate away many plants in the key coffee growing regions of southern India.
India produces only 4.5 percent of the world's coffee but exports 70 to 80 percent of its output. The state-run Coffee Board said earlier this month 2006/07 output would rise 9 percent to 300,000 tonnes on good rains and increased acreage. That compared with 270,000-275,500 tonnes in each of the last three years.