SAO PAULO: A moderate frost surprised producers in several areas of Brazil's main coffee belt early Monday morning, where it is likely to trim the country's output in 2017, agricultural engineer Andre Alvarenga at Procafe analysts said on Monday.
The degree to which the frost damaged trees, which are highly vulnerable to freezing temperatures, will only be known in the coming few days, Alvarenga said.
But he said he expects some areas to suffer damages from the sudden cold snap.
"We were not expecting this. Both farms with higher elevations as well as lower lying areas were hit," he said. "We will follow this in the field in the coming days to measure the damage."
Alvarenga said the Mogiana region of Sao Paulo and the southern part of the Cerrado region in Minas Gerais were the most widely affected areas, but frost was also reported in several areas of South Minas and in isolated areas of Parana.
Photographs and video on Facebook and other social media sites showed the top few nodes of branches on coffee trees in areas such as Sao Pedro da Uniao with a moderate level of frost covering their new shoots.
The frost can cause the leaves of coffee trees to die, cutting the productive potential of the next crop.
The current bumper crop, which is about at the midway point of harvesting, will be unaffected, as beans are fully developed and will not suffer from colder temperatures.
Futures prices for the commodities often shoot up on reports of frost.
ICE September futures contracts were trading up 1 percent on Monday at $1.461.
This was the second case of frost so far this season in the coffee belt, though the previous occasion did not cause any significant losses to trees' productive capacity for the next crop.
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