fonte: Cepea

Flooding Damages Coffee Crops, Trees In Vietnamese Province

23 de dezembro de 2005 | Sem comentários English Geral
Por: Bloomberg

Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) — Flooding this month in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, the world’s second-biggest coffee producer, has washed away beans harvested from the current crop and damaged trees, according to a government report.

Coffee trees in two villages in Dak Nong province’s Krong No district have been damaged, and harvested beans can’t dry, according to a Dec. 19 report by the provincial People’s Committee. Dak Nong has about 87,000 hectares of coffee land, according to the province’s agriculture and rural development department, about one-fifth of the total coffee land in Vietnam.

`wp_posts`Some harvested coffee beans which were drying in the front and back yards in farmers’ houses were washed away in the floods,” said Pham Huu Hao, manager of the Dak Nong flood and storm prevention and control office, in a telephone interview yesterday from the town of Gia Nghia. `wp_posts`Total losses haven’t been estimated yet.”

Prices of Robusta, bitter-tasting beans used by Nestle SA and Kraft Foods Inc. for instant coffee, have gained 54 percent this year on the Liffe exchange in London. Robusta futures in London traded late yesterday at $1,169 a metric ton.

Access to several villages in Dak Nong Province was cut off after roads flooded in the province this week because of rains, Lao Dong newspaper reported yesterday.

50 Hectares

Krong No is the only Dak Nong district that has seen significant damage from the floods, which resulted largely from rivers overflowing after rains in neighboring provinces, said Hao. About 50 hectares of coffee trees in Krong No have been damaged, according to both Hao and Nguyen Duc Luyen, director of Dak Nong’s agriculture and rural development department.

In Dak Lak province, which borders Dak Nong to the north and is Vietnam’s top coffee-producing province, about 900 hectares of coffee land have been damaged by flooding, according to Pham Xuan Truong, head of the province’s flood and storm prevention and control committee. The figure is an increase from the 400 to 500 hectares that Truong estimated on Dec. 21.

`wp_posts`We have just received a report from Krong Pak district that about 400 hectares of coffee have been seriously damaged, with beans falling off trees and branches broken,” said Truong yesterday in a telephone interview from Dak Lak’s provincial capital of Buon Ma Thuot. `wp_posts`We won’t know the total losses for a few months, when we know whether the trees will survive.”

Brazil

The Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association records Dak Lak’s coffee land at about 165,000 hectares out of Vietnam’s total coffee territory of between 450,000 and 470,000 hectares. Dak Lak’s provincial department of natural resources said today the figure for the province’s coffee land may be revised to 180,000 hectares.

A world coffee shortage is looming two years from now as yields from Brazilian trees dwindle and a global surplus in 2006-07 fails to replenish stockpiles in producer countries, commodity analysts F.O. Licht forecast in a report yesterday.

Production probably will increase next year in Vietnam, according to the report. Production in the year ending Sept. 30, 2006 in Vietnam, the biggest grower of Robusta, is forecast by the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association to decline to between 600,000 and 630,000 tons from 804,000 tons in the previous crop year.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Jason Folkmanis in Ho Chi Minh City folkmanis@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: December 23, 2005 01:12 EST

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