Brazil's June green coffee exports fell 12 percent from a year ago to 2.07 million 60-kg bags, the lowest level of the 2015-16 (July-June) crop year, after weather and depleted stocks curbed shipments heading into the new harvest, export association Cecafe said on Wednesday.
Cecafe Chairman Nelson Carvalhaes said the drought in many coffee-growing regions over the past two years hurt production and forced the country to tap its stocks to maintain strong coffee exports over that period. "Brazil used up the coffee it harvested and its outstanding stocks" in 2015-16, Carvalhaes said, adding that reserves of the commodity in the hands of producers, exporters and industry are "at historically low levels."
Exports of green coffee have been falling since the start of 2016, which caused shipments for the July-June crop year to fall 3.8 percent to 31.79 million bags from a record 33.05 million bags the previous year, Cecafe said. The bumper harvest of the new crop is nearing its midway point and will support exports through the rest of the year, Carvalhaes said, but he could not rule out another decline in shipments heading into next year's harvest.
"Until December or even January, shipments will be good," he said. "From January, it's uncertain." Carvalhaes added that exports through 2016-17 would only be on par with 2015-16 levels due to the depleted condition of coffee stocks. Strong exports of robusta over the past two years helped partially make up for some of the losses to the arabica crop that reduced output, but a dry spell this season in the main producing state for robusta severely hurt output of the bean. Arabica exports were up 2.6 percent in June from a year ago at 1.98 million bags, while shipments of robusta were down nearly 80 percent at 83,300 bags, Cecafe said.