Arabica Coffee, Cotton Post Biggest Weekly Percentage Drops Since August

  NEW YORK - Arabica coffee and cotton futures posted the biggest weekly

percentage drops since August as growers began harvesting crops against a

backdrop of tepid demand.

  Arabica coffee for delivery in December ended at $1.0910 a pound, down 1.1%

on the day Friday and the lowest active-month settlement since March 11, 2011.

Prices fell 4.8% in the week.

  The crop year began Oct. 1, with growers from Colombia and Central America

starting to pick their crops.

  With the start of the harvest, "it seems that the selling pressure has

increased," said Hernando de la Roche, a senior vice president at brokerage

INTL FCStone.

  The new crop comes after Brazil is estimated to have reaped a record

off-cycle crop.

  At the same time, roasters still aren't rushing to buy beans, several traders

have said.

  Cotton prices face a similar situation. The harvest in the U.S., the world's

biggest exporter of the fiber, is ramping up, while sales overseas are

shrinking.

  Net export sales of upland variety cotton totaled 44,000 bales in the week

ended Oct. 3, according to the latest data available from the USDA. That was

down 32% from the previous week and down 52% from the four-week average.

  The USDA expects global supplies of cotton to outpace demand by 94.73 million

bales in the 2013-14 crop year, a 10% increase over last season's surplus.

  Cotton for delivery in December ended at 79.08 cents a pound, down 0.2% on

the day. Cotton futures fell 4.9% this week.

  In other markets, raw-sugar futures fell 2.4% this week, after prices spiked

to a nearly one-year high on Oct. 18 on news of a fire that swept through

warehouses in top sugar producer Brazil's main port. Raw sugar for delivery in

March ended 0.3% higher at 19.03 cents a pound.

  Cocoa for December ended 1% higher on the day at $2,713 a ton. Orange-juice

concentrate for January ended 0.1% lower at $1.2145 a pound.