Tropical Research Services (TRS) announces
a 4% coffee reduction in 2022 production year
The recent frost damage in Brazil was
assessed by Tropical Research Services (TRS) to analyze the scale of the
destruction to the coffee plantation in the country. During the webcast
organized by the Intercontinental Exchange, TRS claimed a 4% loss to the
country’s 2022 crop year.
According to Steve Wateridge, TRS’s global
head, the frost were not as severe as the 2001 and 1994 weather incidents.
He added that TRS
expects a loss of around 2.7 million 60-kg bags to Brazil's 2022/23 coffee crop
potential from the frosts, taking into consideration the forecaster's initial
estimate for a crop around 68 million bags next year in the world's largest
producer and exporter.
Guaxupe, Brazilian coffee exporter has its own estimation of a
potential loss of over 4 million bags showing a 50 % difference in the two
assessment data. Another trader, Comexim put its figure with a 20% fall in the production in
the south Minas Gerais coffee producing region.
TRS’s figure is based on the percentage of area so severely
affected that coffee production will not start to recover until the 2024 and
2025 crops, but it does not include the much larger area of coffee farms which
will have to be renovated or replanted because of the uneven impact of damage
by the frost.
History will remember it as the Black Frost Of 2021 unlike the
“black frost” weather condition that mostly hits the state of Parana in 1975
and 1978, and led to an estimated 90% of the state’s farmers abandon coffee
production in the southernmost part of the Brazilian coffee belt.
Wateridge believes the current drought in Brazil will have a
larger impact than the frost. TRS currently estimates a loss of 6.3 million
bags for the potential arabica production next season from the drought alone.