Indonesia's robusta coffee shipments from the main growing areas in Sumatra more than trippled in March versus a year ago, as farmers sold stocks to bank on high coffee prices, trade data and an industry official said on Friday. Exporters shipped 29,391.88 tonnes last month, from 8,004.17 tonnes in the same month a year ago, trade data showed.
"Farmers were selling out their beans stocks because demand was high and coffee prices were also rallying," said Muchtar Lutfie, the research head of the Indonesia Coffee Exporters Association (AEKI) for Lampung branch. London second-month robusta coffee futures ended the first quarter up 20.6 percent from end-2010, boosted by supply tightness. May robustas settled on Thursday at $2,528 a tonne.
The International Coffee Organisation has estimated coffee stocks in producing countries at the beginning of the 2010/11 crop year were at the lowest level since it began keeping records in 1965. Heavy rains last year have caused some areas in Sumatra to harvest early.
Harvests in Sumatra usually start in March or April, but farmers have been picking cherries since January as the flowering season began earlier in some areas after the previous crop ended last August. As a result, many exporters have preferred to sign nearby contracts to avoid defaults. Exporters in the main growing province of Lampung began to stockpile good-quality coffee last year, with inventories estimated at more than 100,000 tonnes in late 2010.
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