Brazil's 2017 coffee crop should amount to between 43.65 million and 47.51 million 60-kg bags, compared with 51.37 million last year, as the off-year in the biennial cycle cuts expected output, government agency Conab said on Tuesday.
In its first projection for the new coffee crop, Conab said it expected arabica output to reach 35.01 million to 37.88 million bags versus 43.38 million in 2016. It projected robusta production at 8.64 million to 9.63 million bags, compared with 7.98 million last year.
Brazil is the world's largest producer and exporter of coffee and is expected to ship about 30 million bags abroad in 2017.
Production in the country fluctuates, since trees stressed after a year of large outputs tend to yield less fruit in the following season. That effect has diminished in recent years, though, through better crop care and adoption of new varieties.
Conab sees agricultural yields, or bags per hectare, falling 5 percent to 12 percent in 2017, depending on climate conditions ahead of the harvest period, which traditionally kicks off around April.