Colombia coffee harvest reviving as rust retreats

Colombia coffee harvest reviving as rust retreats

Colombia's fight against coffee rust, whose spread is being exacerbated by climate change, is paying off "impressively", with a recovery in output to regain the country its third rank among producers of the bean.
Colombia's coffee output, essentially all of the arabica variety traded in New York, will rebound 9.5m bags in the 2010-11 season, which began in October, equivalent to a 17% rise and more than previously expected, US Department of Agriculture officials in Bogota said.
The USDA has pencilled in an official forecast of 9.0m bags.
And the recovery will continue in 2011-12, driving production to a four-year high of 10.5m bags, and sufficient to support exports of 9.8m bags – up by 30% from last season's 33-year low.
The improved prospects, which would prove sufficient to see Colombia climb back above Indonesia in the coffee producers' league, assumes a return to normal weather, after the extremes of recent season, but also reflects hopes for a drive to replant farms with trees resistant to the rust fungus.
'Impressive results'

The drive, which has taken to one-third the proportion of Colombia's coffee area planted with rust-resistant trees, has already fostered a 30% jump in the country's production, and output, so far in 2010-11.

Higher sales of fertilizer and agrichemicals, which have risen 30% as farmers have sought to cash in on higher prices, have also enhanced yields.

International market prices of Colombia coffee, for which the US is the top export destination, hit a record $3.32 a pound early in May, up from an April average of $2.94 a pound, and an average of $2.09 a pound in 2010.
But it is on the replanting, which aims to reach 98% of total area by 2010, that Colombia's coffee fortunes "primarily" rest, given the losses still blighting plantations yet to be redeveloped.
"So far the results are impressive," the USDA attaches said.
Weather and climate
Colombia's sharp decline in coffee output from a high of 12.5m tonnes in 2008-09 reflects largely short-term, volatile weather blamed on the El Nino and La Nina patterns.

Last year, for instance, cursed farmers with drought for the first six months, encouraging coffee cherry borer beetles, and extreme rainfall in the second half, which favoured the spread of rust.
However, longer term climate change also "plays a big role", the attaches said, noting Colombian government findings that disease outbreaks were increasing as average temperatures rise.

Colombia coffee estimates 2011-12 and, (year-on-year change)
Production: 10.5m bags, (+10.5%)
Exports: 9.8m bags, (+6.5%)
Year end stocks: 200,000 bags, (-14.5%)
Source: USDA attache report