Arabica production alone is expected to exceed Brazil’s entire 2017/18 crop in what Conab (the Brazilian state forecasting agency) is predicting will be a record harvest.
The 2018/19 crop year, which begins in July, is expected to yield between 58 and 60 million 60-kilo bags, the highest estimate recorded.
Conab estimates 58.04 million bags compared to the 44.97 million bags harvested last year. Arabica is estimated at 44.33 million bags and robusta 13.71 million bags.
While good news for coffee companies that were forced to reduce stocks last year, the bumper crop has depressed prices. Coffee has traded around $1.15 per pound since April.
A U.S. attaché was even more optimistic, estimating the crop at 60.2 million bags. Yield per hectare is projected at 29.2 bags, up from 25.2 bags per hectare in 2017/18.
Coffee harvests are cyclic, with a weak flowering like last year followed by robust growth. Robusta plants are doing exceptionally well after two bad years. Favorable weather and increasingly more sophisticated methods of cultivation have kept Brazil the world’s largest coffee producing country.