Colombia’s coffee output, exports to hit 25-year high
Colombia’s recovery in coffee output, and exports, will progress faster than had been thought this season, US officials said – but on an assumption of “normal” weather, even as ideas of La Nina grow. The US Department of Agriculture’s Bogota bureau pegged Colombia’s coffee output in 2017-18, on an October-to-September basis, at 14.7m bags, a 25-year high. The figure was 100,000 bags above the USDA’s official estimate, and represents a near-doubling in output from a low 7.66m bags reached six seasons ago, when production was dented by a drive to replant with trees resistant to the rust fungus which had badly hurt the country’s productivity. Indeed, the bureau’s output estimate reflects in part expectations of “more plants reaching their productive peak”. More than 420,000 hectares of the 940,000 hectares of coffee area in Colombia has so far been replanted, with renovation continuing at an average pace of 84,000 hectares a year.
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