Coffee Harvest in Vietnam Moves Slowly as Prices Extend Decline
- Farmers tend to harvest in bulk to save costs, Simexco says
- Lower quality reflected in smaller beans, one-seed cherries
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Coffee farmers in Vietnam, the top producer of robusta beans used by Nestle SA, are harvesting more slowly than usual because of low prices.
About 32 percent of the 2015-16 crop was collected in October and November, according to the median of eight estimates from traders surveyed by Bloomberg. That compares with 41 percent a year ago and a five-year average of about 38 percent, the survey showed. Output is forecast at 1.65 million metric tons, 3.1 percent higher than the 1.6 million tons in the last crop year.