In November this year, Brazil exported 4.66 million 60-kilo bags (kg) of coffee. With the result, 5.4% higher than in the same month of 2023, when the country sold 4.42 million bags of the product to the foreign market, the coffee growing sector set a new record: one month before the end of the year, the national producers had already shipped a total of 46.399 million bags, exceeding by 3.78% the highest volume recorded until then, which was 44.707 million bags over the years. 12 months of 2020.
According to the Council of Brazilian Coffee Exporters (Cecafé), an entity that released statistical data this Monday (9), with foreign sales of the product, Brazil received, in November alone, US$ 1.343 billion – an amount 62.7% higher than the US$825.7 million recorded in the same month of 2023. If the revenues received from January to November this year (US$11.30 billion) are compared to those from the same period of 2023 (US$ 9.24 billion), growth is around 22.3%
Until the end of November, the main importers of Brazilian coffee were the United States (7.419 million bags, or 16% of the total), Germany (7.228 million), Belgium (4.070 million), Italy (3.702 million) and Japan (2.053 million), and, in total, the Japanese imported, this year, a volume 0.3% lower than in the same period in 2023.
The type of coffee that Brazil has exported the most in 2024 continues to be Arabica: more than 33.97 million bags. According to Cecafé, this volume, 23.2% higher than the same period last year, is the largest in history for the 11-month period. Next comes the canephora species (conilon + robusta).
Top quality coffees or coffees certified using sustainable practices accounted for 17.5% of total Brazilian exports between January and November 2024, with 8.112 million bags shipped abroad. This volume is 33.5% higher than that recorded in the first 11 months of last year. The average price of the product was US$269.41 per bag, generating foreign exchange revenue of US$2.185 billion, or 19.3% of the total obtained.
Challenges
Despite the good results, Cecafé points to the persistence of bottlenecks that hamper the sector, especially in logistical terms. “In theory, when we analyze the performance of Brazilian coffee exports, we would only have reasons to celebrate, but the reality is a little more cruel”, stated the entity’s president, Márcio Ferreira, in a statement. “This record performance is due to the professionalism and creativity of exporters associated with Cecafé, who have sought alternatives and have been paying millions of dollars in additional expenses in their export processes due to the lack of infrastructure, especially in Brazilian ports, to honor their commitments to customers. international coffees from Brazil”.
THE Brazil Agency consulted the Brazilian Coffee Industry Association (Abic) regarding the data released by Cecafé. Also in a statement, the entity’s president, Pavel Cardoso, commented that the sector expects to reach, this year, close to the mark of 50 million bags of coffee exported.
“The export data released by Cecafé, which should accumulate, at the end of this year, close to 50 million bags of coffee, are vigorous and, compared to last year’s data, which totaled close to 40 million, demonstrate the vigor that Brazilian exports reached this year”, stated Cardoso.
For the president of Abic, two factors were important for the increase in imports: “robast (Brazilian conilon) was very cheap compared to conilon from Vietnam in the first half of the year, hence the reason why these exports remain much higher than last year , especially conilon (robust), and another point that was fundamental, especially in the last four months, were the anticipations that these European importers made due to the imminent entry into force of the EUDR, which was postponed for another 12 months, but the anticipations from importers were already done”.
The report also requested a response from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and is awaiting feedback.
