Brazil Set For A Bumper Crop

Brazil, the world’s biggest producer of coffee, is set to have a very big year.

Not only is the famous South American country forecasted to have one of its biggest harvests on record, farmers are expecting to haul in a crop of bumper-sized beans.

Speaking to the news agency Reuters, Carlos Paulino da Costa, president of the trading cooperative Cooxupre, said that a deluge of rain following a period of prolonged drought had caused beans swell in size.

These bigger beans will likely go down well with buyers from abroad and should bring the farmers an extra pot of income.

“Importers want beans of 16-, 17- and 18-sized screens,” da Costa noted.

“The market prefers bigger beans, which they think taste better. Last year, we would not have lost sales to foreign markets if we had more well-formed beans.”

For the past two harvests, Brazil’s coffee plantations faced long dry stints that seriously reduced crop levels. But, after a welcomed stint of rain, growers are back on track and set to bring in 2016 with a bumper harvest.

Cooxupe – the world’s largest coffee cooperative – expects to handle 6 million bags of coffee during the upcoming harvesting season, which is due to begin in May.

If they do process 6 million bags, it would represent a year-on-year rise of 15%.

Of that total, around 4.6 million bags of coffee is set to be exported.

“The formation of coffee on [the] trees is coming along very well,” Costa said, hyping the upcoming harvest.

“[The] beans are developing well. We will not have the problems we had last year.”