NEW YORK: Brazil’s 2022/23 coffee crop was projected at 64.5 million 60-kg bags on Wednesday by Dutch bank Rabobank, which reduced its previous estimate of total production of 66.5 million bags. Rabobank said a recent tour to 229 farms in Brazil found that the good flowering last year “did not live up to its initial promise,” resulting is a smaller-than-anticipated crop.

The bank estimated Brazil’s 2022/23 arabica coffee output at 41.4 million bags, with robusta coffee production at a record 23.1 million bags.

“There was a sharp contrast between the excellent productivity of conillon (robusta) farms and the lackluster productivity of arabica farms, especially considering that this was meant to be an ‘on-cycle’ crop in arabica areas,” RaboResearch analysts Carlos Mera and Guilherme Morya wrote in a report.

Arabica coffee trees alternate years of high and low production. The 2022/23 crop is ‘on-year’ in the cycle, but frosts and the strongest drought in 90 years in 2021 hurt prospects.

The analysts said the weather conditions led to higher pruning rates in Brazil coffee areas. They also noted a switch from coffee to other crops such as grains where damage from frosts and drought had been extreme.

Rabobank cited some risks for Brazilian coffee next year due to the ongoing fertilizer situation. Brazil imports large amounts of fertilizer from Russia, a trade that is likely to be disrupted, while prices soar.

“From December onward, we may have a complicated situation, given the potential for a fertilizer shortage to impact applications and productivity,” the analysts said.