Brazil's coffee crop in the upcoming 2020/21 season is expected to total 67.5 million 60-kg bags, according to a Rabobank crop survey published on Monday. The crop was expected to be made up of a record 49 million bags of arabica and 18.5 million of conillon (robusta) coffee.

"The size of the arabica crop was surprisingly high, given the weather pattern was less than perfect during the second half of 2019," Rabobank said. The bank said both the amount and size of the cherries on arabica trees had surpassed expectations.

"Virtually all key arabica regions are at, or near, record levels, with the notable exception of Cerrado," Rabobank said noting flowering in Cerrado took place later than other areas. The bank also said they did not see any problems with bean development.

"In principle, a higher-than-expected crop should translate into low prices. But for the time being we see a very tight physical arabica market in Brazil until the 2020/21 arabica crop is harvested," Rabobank said. The conillon crop of 18.5 million bags was below the previous season's record 20 million bags. "After record production levels and sun stress see in the last harvest, farmers in Espirito Santo decided to prune more branches than normal. This underpins our lower crop estimates," the report said.