INDIA'S 2014/15 COFFEE OUTPUT TO FALL SHORT OF FORECAST

摘要

The Coffee Board of India (CBI) on January 8 reduced it coffee production forecast for 2014/15 (Oct/Sep) to 5.517 mln 60-kg bags in its post-monsoon forecast, which is down 4% from a level of 5.746 mln bags projected in its July 8 post-blossom estimate.This confirms what some industry sources had already suggested earlier, namely that a combination of unfavourable weather and disease pressure will make reaching the original target unfeasible.Following a long period of drought (from November 2013 to May 2014), the coffee areas experienced heavy monsoon rains especially in top producing state Karnataka, which led to soil saturation resulting in defoliation and incidences of stalk rot and blackrot leading to crop losses especially in robusta coffee, the CBI said. Also, the Hud-Hud cyclone of October 12 caused extensive damage to coffee plants in non-traditional areas due to large-scale uprooting of shade trees. A major problem for arabica trees has been the excessive dryness. It was the second successive year when coffee areas were facing long dry spells, leading to a heavy infestation with the coffee white stem borer resulting in crop losses for the variety. The arabica production forecasthas therefore been reduced by 98,333 bags from the previous forecast to 1.660 mln bags, while the robusta projection was cut by 130,833 bags to 3.857 mln.This means that output would still be up from 5.075 mln bags in2013/14, which was made up of 3.372 mln bags of robusta and 1.703 mln bags of arabica coffee. In fact, it would be the highest output ever and surpass the previous record of 5.303 mln bags established in 2012/13.The share of arabica production in total output has been declining somewhat since the mid-1990s. In percentage terms, it stood in the mid-40s in the last decade of the 20th century and declined to the mid-30s in the first decade after the turn of the century and to the low 30s in the most recent cycles.