Brazil coffee faces El Niño headwinds, but crops more resilient

By Victoria Pacheco

SAO PAULO, July 13 (Reuters) - El Niño ‌could cut Brazil's expected record ​harvest by ​up to a fifth, according to the Brazilian Coffee Industry Association (Abic), as excessive heat and irregular rainfall threaten production.

For this year, state crop agency Conab forecast a bumper total output of 66.7 million 60-kilogram (132.3 lb) bags of arabica and canephora beans, ‌with the latter including varieties like robusta and conilon.

But deteriorating weather conditions amid an El Niño weather cycle ⁠could dramatically reduce production, said Abic executive director Celirio Inacio da Silva.

"We are now talking about a crop loss of 15% to 20%, which in a normal year would be ‌within expectations. But in the current scenario, ‌that is very bad news," he said in an interview.

Despite the gloomy outlook, coffee growers are better prepared than during previous El Niño episodes thanks to technological advances producing a more climate-resistant crop.

"We've made significant advances and today we're able to plant and harvest more efficiently," ​said Silva.

Coffee farmers in recent years have shored up their ability to mitigate climate risks by rapidly expanding irrigation systems, investing heavily in such technology to reduce their dependence on increasingly erratic rainfall driven by climate change.

Even so, El Niño is expected to disrupt the crop's biological ⁠cycle, particularly during the flowering period in the second half of 2026. Excessive heat and irregular rainfall can lead to uneven and unsuccessful flowering, specialists said.

"Irregular ripening creates quality problems and makes ​harvesting more challenging," said Wellis Caixeta, coffee purchasing manager at Minas Gerais-based cooperative Expocacer.

The 2023/24 El Niño, combined with heatwaves and irregular rainfall, cut Brazil's 2024 coffee crop from an initial government forecast of 58.8 million ​to 54.2 million 60-kg bags. Despite arabica's positive biennial cycle, output rose just ‌0.2%, while conilon productivity fell 5.9%.

El Niño may already explain some anomalies, such as unusual rainfall in southeastern Brazil over the past month.

Expocacer estimates that rainfall exceeding 50 millimeters in arabica-growing regions about 40 days ago delayed the ⁠harvest and caused a significant amount of coffee cherries to fall to the ground, hurting bean quality.

Espirito Santo, Brazil's largest producer of canephora coffees, has also faced irregular weather this year, with longer intervals between rainfall and shorter, more intense downpours, said Luiz Carlos Bastianello, president of Cooabriel, Brazil's largest canephora cooperative.

Growers in the state are ⁠concerned El Niño could prolong dry periods and excessive heat through January 2027, disrupting bean filling, Bastianello said.

While conilon production in the state is expected to decline ​by 15% this year due to conilon's natural biennial cycle - which alternates between high- and low-yield years - Bastianello said it would be too early to forecast the impact of El Niño in 2027.

"Heat is the biggest risk for severe crop loss. Above 27 degrees Celsius (80.6°F), Canephora slows its metabolism, and at 35°C (95°F) it stops altogether. ‌The damage is often greater than from the lack of water itself," he added.

Conditions have been more favorable in northern Brazil, where temperatures and rainfall have remained largely within seasonal norms this year. In Rondonia state ‌farmers expect a record harvest of 3 million 60-kg (132.3 lb) bags, above crop agency Conab's forecast of 2.77 million bags.

Heat and drought associated with El Niño are unlikely ⁠to have the same impact on Rondonia's robusta crop ‌as on arabica-producing regions, said Juan Travain, president ​of state coffee association Caferon.

"Coffee is highly sensitive to temperature fluctuations, but virtually all robusta plantations are irrigated, and some also use water-based cooling systems. Many arabica farms, by contrast, still lack irrigation," he said.

(Reporting by Victoria Pacheco; Editing ‌by Oliver Griffin)

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