Nicaraguan coffee output to fall 15pc in 2019/20 amidst crisis

NEW YORK: Nicaraguan coffee production in 2019/20 is expected to drop 15% from the previous year as the country's coffee sector faces its "worst crisis of the last decade," the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) attache in Managua said in a report on Friday.

Such a classification would mean that the current crisis surpasses that of the 2013/2014 season, when an outbreak of fungal diseases slashed the country's coffee output by about a quarter.

In 2019/20, production in Central America's third-largest coffee producer is expected to fall to about 2 million 60-kg bags, as farmers grapple not only with low global prices but also with reduced access to financing as political tensions in the country since April 2018 have prompted capital flight, the attache said.

"Coffee farmers do not foresee a short term solution to the crisis and expect that production numbers will continue on a downward trend beyond the 2019/2020 coffee harvest," the report said.

Global coffee prices have languished around 13-year lows for the past several months because of massive global supplies following a record-large crop in top-grower Brazil.

Nicaraguan exports in the 2019/20 season are seen falling to 1.9 million bags in 2019/20, from 2.2 million bags in the previous season.