In less than a week, Colombian coffee has broken a double record in its price internal reference, with a cost of $2,307,000 per load of 125 kilograms, increasing its price by 2.99% in a single day.
(The domestic price of Colombian coffee exceeded 2.3 million pesos).
This good news for coffee growers has its reason for being. In accordance with Roberto Velez Vallejogeneral manager of the National Federation of Coffee Growers, Fedecafé, the main cause of this price increase is the climate situation in Brazil.
“In the producing areas there were two very strong blows to the level of the coffee harvest. First they had a drought at the end of 2020, and in 2021 this country experienced a frost situation that also affected its production and that of this year”, he added.
Internationally, Colombian coffee, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, is also reached its highest value since September 20, 2011, US$2.58 per pound.
Thus, the union manager alludes these results to the fact that last year Brazil had just harvested its 2020 harvest, the largest in its history, almost 70 million bags, and the international world felt “well covered”, because the exports from this country broke records.
(The domestic price of Colombian coffee reached a new record).
However, the current situation reflected low production that the nation had, due to climate fluctuations. This has made buyers prefer to go to the inventories managed by the New York Stock Exchange, which has generated a “protruding fall”, said Vélez.
Therefore, it has increased its valuation, taking it to $2.58. However, the manager of Fedecafepoints out that these prices are also related to the quality of this Colombian product. “We must bear in mind that there has always been a differential price for the quality of Colombian coffee. This cost has continued to increase, traditionally it was 4 or 5 cents, maximum 10 cents, for the price of the bag. Today it is at 70 cents”, he pointed. For Vélez, this is one of the main reasons why the internal reference price has also reached historical values.
“The surprising increase in the coffee premium shows that the world and the industry are really willing to pay more for the Colombian product,” he stressed.
(15% of agriculture in the country uses high technology in processes).
THE CONTRAST OF LOW PRODUCTION
The good internal prices are also accompanied by a 20% production reductionin January compared to the same period last year.
In that order of ideas, during this month 868,000 bags of 60 kilograms of coffee were produced, “mainly due to unfavorable weather conditions,” said the Federation.
The first month of the past year had a production of almost 1.1 million bags, which represents a considerable decrease.
Now, as for the coffee year – which runs from October to October – so far production is up to 4.4 million bags 19% less compared to the more than 5.4 million bags produced in the same previous period.
Faced with this situation, the coffee union leader pointed out that “the Federation has been doing all the work of renewing capital, to improve harvests.”
Last year, Vélez assured, almost 82,000 hectares of this crop were renewed, which is the way in which coffee growers approach the harvests of the next two years.
“If you have a young and renewed coffee industry, you can guarantee next year’s production volumes,” he argued.
For the Federation, Colombia has a coffee park capable of producing 14.5 million bags. However, there are weather conditions that fluctuate the volume of crops.
However, it highlights that strategies have been implemented so that these phenomena that do not depend on the sector can have a lesser impact.
in the rainy season From the year 2009-2010, according to the manager of Fedecafé, there was a decrease of 5 million bags.
“Back then what happened was that, as there was so much rain, the coffee plantations that were not resistant to rust had a major attack,” he said. Whereas a decade ago, 70% of coffee varieties were vulnerable to this disease. Now 85% are resistant to this fungus.
Regarding the prevention strategies against these abrupt climate changes that this crop has carried out, the former Minister of Agriculture, Ruben Dario Lizarralde, stated that coffee planting has been increased in Colombia to try to counteract the warming that has given on earth.
Now, regarding the exports of this product, coffee closed 2021 with 12.4 million 60-kilo bags of green coffee.
This represented a decrease of 1% compared to 2020, a period in which 12.5 million bags were sold abroad.
JULIANA PEÑA
BRIEFCASE
