Rain in Colombia Hurts Coffee, Rice, Corn Crops, USDA Unit Says
Coffee, corn, rice, cotton and other agricultural products are being damaged by excessive rain from a La Nina weather pattern in Colombia, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service said today in report on its website. The government has declared a “public disaster” as 200,000 hectares (494,200 acres) have been “severely affected,” the agency said.
Flooding has damaged roads and delayed agriculture shipments, the report said. The rain is forecast to last until the first quarter of 2011, it said.
Colombia is the second-largest grower of arabica coffee beans. A La Nina weather event is caused by cooling equatorial waters in the Pacific Ocean.
To contact the reporter on this story: Leslie Patton in Chicago at Lpatton5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Stroth at sstroth@bloomberg.net.
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