The Hindu Business Line : Arabica output seen at 14-year low

Chennai, April 30 Arabica coffee production this season to October will be the lowest in 14 years, but the eight-year high output of robusta is likely to help things as the Coffee Board on Thursday cut the production estimated further by five per cent to 2.63 lakh tonnes.

The board, on its Web site, projected arabica production at 79,500 tonnes, the lowest since an output of 79,000 tonnes in 1994-95, while robusta’s at 1,82,300 tonnes, the highest since 1,96,800 tonnes were produced in 2000-1.

The board had initially projected the production at 2.93 lakh tonnes in June after budwood estimates, but after monsoon it pruned the projection to 2,76,600 tonnes in November.

Despite the sharp revision, the production, going by the estimates, will be 300 tonnes higher than last season.

Explaining the cut in production, the Coffee Board said it had pruned arabica output by 20,500 tonnes and that of robusta by 10,200 tonnes between post blossom and revised post monsoon.

Among the growing States, the major drop is in Karnataka. While the crop has been pruned 7,900 tonnes in Hassan, in Chikmagalur it is seen down 14,450 tonnes and in Kodagu 7,960 tonnes.

Business Line had on March 25, 2008 said heavy rains in Karnataka would affect this year’s production, while on December 6, said the output would be lower than the revised estimate of 2.76 lakh tonnes.

The Coffee Board said the major factors that affected this year’s production were rain on the blossom day followed by heavy monsoon and off-season rains in October and November leading to dropping of arabica berries.

For the next year, the growing areas have witnessed timely showers and this may help in better production.

In February and March last year, some of the growing areas such as Kodagu witnessed heavy rains on the day the coffee flowers blossomed. During this period the bud in the coffee plant blossom and the setting of fruit takes place. So when it rained during the blossom period, the setting got affected as pollen grains got washed away.

While untimely showers affected the arabicas, the robustas were hit by rains during November just when they were ready for harvest.

The lower production is also having an effect on the exports. Provisional figures show that shipments from the country are down to 73,286 tonnes since January against 89,051 tonnes during the same period a year ago.

The effect of the drop has, to an extent, been softened by re-exports of 5,422 tonnes against nil last year.

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