Colombia facing a borer outbreak

“Every day it’s getting worse,” said Pedro Echeverria.

Echeverria is coffee farmer based in the Colombian province of Antioquia and, like so many of his colleagues; he is bracing himself for an influx of insects that could potentially decimate his entire harvest.

A prolonged dry spell combined with consistently high temperatures is threatening to create the perfect environment for the coffee berry borer to prosper.

“There were high temperatures between May and August in some areas,” explained Carlos Uribe, the Technical Manager of the Colombian coffee growers’ federation (FDC).

“When there are high temperatures the [borers’] life-cycle shortens and there are more insects.”

At the moment the FNC has stated that the outbreak is restricted to the provinces of Antioquina, Quindio, Caldas, Valle del Cauca and Risaralda and that infestation rates are somewhere between 2.5 and 8 percent.

However Echeverria contradicts those figures, instead telling press reporters that the borer can be found “all over the province and the main coffee [growing] regions” and that infestation rates are “up to 12 percent.”

This outbreak has come at the worst possible time for Colombia – South America’s second-largest coffee producer – as the nation had appeared to dodge the adverse weather patterns that have wreaked havoc in Brazil, and the presence of the coffee rust disease which has severely impacted production in other nearby countries. As a result of this, the benchmark price of Arabica coffee has doubled in 2014.

Internal reports suggest that over 12.1 million bags of coffee were due to be harvested in the year up to September 2014, a quantity that would represent a near 25% increase when compared to the previous twelve months. But now that bumper crop is under threat.

“It’s very, very serious,” said Juan Arboleda who runs a 500 acre plantation in Antioquia, sentiments shared by his fellow farmer Jose Giraldo.

Despite the average price for coffee rising, the outbreak of the borer beetle has forced Colombians to accept less money for their harvests. “We’re without a market for our coffee because it [has] been badly affected,”Giraldo explained: “The cooperatives are buying it at very low prices.”