Leading German coffee group Neumann Kaffee forecasts Brazil's 2008/09 coffee harvest will rise sharply to 54.5 million 60-kg bags from 39.1 million bags in 2007/08, traders said on Thursday. Neumann traditionally does not make its reports available for general publication.
A spokesman at the group's headquarters in Hamburg said: "We have not published any official figures," but declined to say whether internal group estimates had been made.
Neumann's forecast would compare to 41.3 to 44.2 million bags estimated by Brazil's state crop agency Conab and 53.9 million bags expected by coffee group Mercon. Traders said Neumann estimates Brazil will harvest 41.2 million bags of arabica and 13.3 million bags of conillon robusta beans in 2008/09. "Overall the Neumann estimates are not surprising and confirm growing belief that Brazil will harvest over 50 million bags this year," said one coffee trader.