A cold front will sweep across the coffee-producing areas of Brazil over the course of the week, bringing with it a thin blanket of rain, forecaster Somar said on Monday. Rainfall in the growing regions concentrated in the south-east has been average or below average this month, but abundant showers in November restored soil moisture levels after a prolonged dry spell that had given producers a scare in the world's top coffee grower.
"In the last week of the year, the rains are spread over much of the coffee producing belt," Marcio Custodio wrote in a daily coffee weather bulletin. By the middle of next week the showers would move up to more northerly growing zones. Showers would fall regularly this week but would be fairly light in the densest parts of the coffee belt. Showers would turn heavier by December 24 in robusta growing Espirito Santo and the forested part of the main coffee state Minas Gerais.
Somar warned that recent damp conditions and little sunshine had increased the incidence of leaf rust, but it has not tended to cause major problems in the past. It said the coffee region where Minas Gerais borders northern Sao Paulo continued to have low soil moisture which it said was causing some tiny fruit developing for the 2011 crop to abort.
Co-operatives say the condition of the developing crop is mixed, noting that lower-lying areas that suffered greater heat and less rainfall earlier in the year could produce less while other areas looked to be in good shape.
In an end-of-year letter to clients and associates, exporter Comexim, based in the port town of Santos, said it was reluctant to venture a forecast for the size of the coming crop which comes in an off year in the biennial high-low cycle. However, Comexim trader John Wolthers is among those who have said the outlook is generally good, in spite of the problematic dry conditions a few months ago.
"Concerning the coming Brazilian crop (2011/2012), the situation remains extremely favourable. It has been raining very much also, but when once in a while the sun peeps through the clouds, the result is a perfect greenhouse effect, stimulating the overall yields," Wolthers said. He pointed out that the threat of flooding - which is already hitting transport of beans and causing some produce to get damp and spoil - could also increase importers' reliance on Brazil, where growers are enthused by much higher prices.
The government will give its first estimate for the 2011/12 crop on January 6. The last off year in 2009 turned out 39.5 million 60-kg bags, but exporters' estimates are usually at least 2 million to 3 million bags above its numbers. By comparison, the now-finished 2010/11 crop, a higher output year in the cycle, turned out 47.2 million bags.