Brazil Coffee Exports May Be Cut as Rain Hurt Bean Quality, Cooxupe Says

By Lucia Kassai – Jun 28, 2010

Brazilian arabica coffee exports may be reduced after rain damaged flowering of the beans last year, the world’s largest coffee cooperative said.

At least 20 percent of the current crop doesn’t meet minimum quality standards for export, compared with an average of 15 percent in recent years, said Joaquim Goulart, chief agronomist of the Cooxupe cooperative.

Brazil is the world’s largest producer of coffee. “The more the harvest advances, the more we are disappointed with quality,” Goulart said today in a telephone interview from Guaxupe, in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state. The cooperative’s growers have harvested about 28
percent of their total crop this year, he said.

Cooxupe’s 11,500 growers, which account for 13 percent of Brazil’s arabica coffee production, will harvest 5 million bags this year. The arabica coffee harvest in Brazil runs from March to September.