SAO PAULO: Brazilian coffee growers continued to harvest the 2024/25 crop at an accelerated pace on the back of dry weather, reaching an estimated 81% of the crop as of July 23, consultancy Safras & Mercado said on Friday.

The harvest pace, up 7 percentage points from the previous week, is above the 74% reaped at the same period a year earlier and also ahead of the five-year average of 77% for this time of the year.

Safras last week cut its estimate for Brazil’s coffee output in the current season to 66.04 million 60-kg bags from 70.37 million bags citing poor crop development under dry weather.

“The downward revision in the crop size reinforces the view that the harvest this year will be concluded earlier (than in other seasons),” Safras consultant Gil Barabach said in a statement on Friday. Brazil’s robusta coffee harvest was seen at 95%, Safras said, up from 89% at the same time last year and above the long-term average of 93%, while the crop is set to be significantly smaller than initially expected.