Mexico Coffee Crop Is Escaping Record Drought, Group Says
Mexico’s coffee crop is escaping the country’s worst drought, with production expected to increase about 8 percent this crop year, the head of the country’s coffee association said.
“We still have our original estimate of 4.2 million bags,” Rodolfo Trampe, head of the association known as Amcafe, said yesterday in an interview in Mexico City. A bag of coffee weighs 60 kilograms (132 pounds). “The drought is not affecting the coffee-growing areas, I’d say maybe the opposite.”
The drought, which President Felipe Calderon said Dec. 14 was the worst on record, is hampering grain crops and fueling concerns of shortages of food and water supplies in some areas. Mexico is spending about 34 billion pesos ($2.63 billion) to help communities and farmers deal with the lack of rainfall, the interior ministry said Jan. 24.
Excess rainfall in the state of Chiapas damaged some coffee crops, Trampe said. The losses because of floods and frosts are limited, he said.
Coffee exports from Mexico, the world’s seventh-largest producer, rose almost 23 percent in December to 163,190 bags, compared to 133,202 bags in the same period a year earlier, Amecafe said Jan. 9.
Mexico should export almost 2.9 million bags this crop year, Trampe said. “The interesting part for us is to see how much we increase the exports of processed coffee,” he said.
Arabica coffee for March delivery trimmed its gains to $2.2045 a pound in New York. The contract had risen as much as 2 percent to $2.2150 a pound earlier today.
To contact the reporter on this story: Carlos Manuel Rodriguez in Mexico City at carlosmr@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net
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