El Salvador's coffee production should rise in 2005/06 after the crop suffered in 2004/05 due to unfavourable rain and farmers who were driven into debt from the last coffee crisis. Agriculture Minister Mario Salaverria told Reuters late Wednesday at the annual Sugar Club dinner in New York the country's coffee output in 2005/06 should recover to 1.9 million quintals (46-kg bags), from around 1.7 million in 2004/05. Last February, an official of the El Salvador Coffee Studies Foundation (Procafe) said output had fallen around 4.5 percent in 2004/05 to 1,727,211 quintals from 1,809,925 quintals in the previous season.
Trade sources said the country is expected to harvest 1.42 million 60-kg bags of coffee in 2004/05, up from 1.349 million in 2003/04.
The world coffee industry was hit by a price crisis that began in 1999 due to surplus bean supplies. El Salvador is dependent on coffee as an important source of foreign revenue and was among the hardest hit.
The benchmark July arabica coffee contract at the New York Board of Trade closed Wednesday up 3.15 cents at 124.75 cents.
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