Hail in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state last week may have ruined 60,000 bags of coffee, or less than 1 percent of this year’s harvest, according to Marco Antonio dos Santos, an agronomist at the Sao Paulo-based Somar Meteorologia.
About 2,400 hectares (5,930 acres) of coffee plantations were affected in Nova Rezende in southern Minas Gerais, Brazil’s largest coffee-producing region, Santos said in a report yesterday.
“That would amount to losses of between 50,000 and 60,000 bags in Nova Rezende,” Santos said by phone from Sao Paulo today. Some trees won’t produce beans until two years, he said.
Brazil, the world’s largest producer of coffee, is forecast to produce between 41.9 million bags and 44.7 million bags of coffee this year, the Agriculture Ministry said in January. It mostly produces arabica coffee beans, favored by coffee shops.
A cold air mass from the South Pole may reach southeast Brazil in the week starting May 9, Santos said. That region includes Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo, the country’s biggest producer of robusta coffee beans. A frost is not forecast, he said. Robusta beans are used in instant coffee.
Arabica coffee for July delivery advanced as much as 8.25 cents, or 2.8 percent, to $3.025 a pound on ICE Futures U.S, the highest price for a most-active contract since May 1997. Robusta coffee for July delivery rose $37, or 1.5 percent, to $2,489 a metric ton by 4:24 p.m. in Londonon NYSE Liffe.
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