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Coffee flowering in Nicaragua.
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Coffee cherries in Nicaragua's new.
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Coffee mountains. In Central America.
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Hurricane damage.
Coffee production in Nicaragua’s new 2021-22 crop is expected to come in about 30% below expectations in a range between 2.1-2.4 million 60-kilogram bags as weather problems from two hurricanes that caused significant damage to the Central American country in November 2020 continue to cause havoc for the local producers, industry officials said this week.
From coffee growers in the key coffee producing regions of Matagalpa and Jinotega, to wet mill managers and industry and trade officials, there is broad consensus the new Nicaraguan crop, which is entering its peak harvest season this month, will fall short of the preliminary forecasts issued by the US Department of Agriculture, USDA.
USDA said in its world annual coffee outlook report for the 2021-21 crop cycle released last year Nicaragua’s new crop is pegged to reach 2.78 million bags, up from output of 2.63 million bags produced in the last harvest cycle which was completed on Sep. 30, 2020. Over 90-95% of Nicaragua’s coffee crop is arabica species while the remainder is robusta.
“It is very difficult to see a better harvest this year, on our farm and in our region of Matagalpa we are expecting a drop of 30% from last year as a direct consequence of the rains that followed the two Hurricanes in November 2020 which affected growth and development of the crop we are harvesting now,” coffee grower Julio Solorzano told STiR Coffee and Tea in an interview.
Growers and millers in the region agree, saying the return of the La Niña weather phenomenon, which brings cooler temperature, higher rainfall, cloudier and overcast days, are posing additional challenges to coffee growers in the country.
“At this point we are estimating a 30% drop in the harvest,” said Henry Hueck, owner of the Ramacafe coffee farm group who in addition to operating his family’s La Virgen coffee farm in Matagalpa also works with growers in the neighboring Jinotega department. The two departments traditionally account for 80% of the total Nicaraguan coffee harvest.
“During the last two weeks of December there was a lot of rain, not extremely heavy but enough to knock off cherries from trees to the ground because we had an early maturation this year and we have not been able to recover that,” Hueck told STiR, adding that a shortage of manual labor has pushed harvest costs up 40% over last year and forcing most farms to operate with a significantly reduced labor force.
The most damaging consequences from weather was caused by the double onslaught of the fierce 2020 hurricane season, where Hurricane Eta made land fall in Nicaragua from Oct. 31 to Nov. 7 and was followed by Hurricane Iota, which hit Nicaragua from Nov. 13-18, both as Category 5 storms which dumped excessive heavy rains for over a month on the northern coffee regions. The two deadly hurricanes caused widespread damage across Central American but hit coffee regions particularly hard in Nicaragua and Honduras.
“We had excess rain fall for a month and trees in coffee farms suffered from rotten root systems, nematodo and other fungus diseases, in addition to the facts that the continuing presence of rains made it impossible to fumigate and bring the presence of fungus and bacterial diseases under control,” said Solorzano.
But what would turn out to cause even more long-term effects was the combination of over 30 days of weather with no sun-exposure, which because of the nonstop rain and overcast weather prevented regular vegetative growth to the planting cycle for trees that were getting prepared for the current 2021-21 harvest cycle. This cut short the branch development of trees which resulted in a significantly lower levels of nodes, which in turn reduces the capacity for coffee trees to produce flowers and fruit.
“In addition to the negative impact on trees from rain and strong winds, the key damage was done by the heavy presence of cloudy and over-cast weather which by being present for most of the month of November limited the photosynthesis of the coffee tree, which in turn weakened the state of trees,” said Solorzano.
The damage from a lack or reduction in sun exposure to coffee is significant and has become a more regularly occurring phenomenon with La Niña returning to the region over the last year, coffee scientists told STiR in recent comments. When the coffee harvest in 2012 fell to 50-year lows in Colombia, the world’s third largest coffee growers after Brazil and Vietnam, it was because a temporary global cycle of cooler weather with more rain provoked a reduction in sun exposure by over 30% which resulted in sharply lower yields. Statistics from weather stations in Nicaragua showed rainfall in Matagalpa was up nearly 27% in 2020 at 2,772 millimeters compared to a historical average of 2,189 mm.
Other industry official in Nicaragua including wet mill managers and exporters told STiR Coffee and Tea that yields in the new harvest have been compromised by the weather effects from the double-hurricane hit in late 2020 and that production in the new harvest is unlikely to reach more than 2.1-2.4 million bags.
The news come at a time when the global coffee market is facing an unprecedented supply deficit after massive crop losses in the world’s largest grower Brazil, which has suffered severe impact from historic drought and frost that caused widespread damage to coffee regions across the country, as most other coffee producing nations in the world also have reported lower crops following multiple problems caused by erratic climate patterns.