Brazil coffee exports fall 19% in March from a year ago -industry group

Brazil shipped 3.088 million 60-kg bags of coffee abroad in March, 19% less than in the same month a year ago, reflecting lower stocks after two smaller crops, industry group Cecafe said on Wednesday.

For green coffee, exports reached 2.781 million bags in March, 19.4% below the figure reported a year ago.

Shipments of arabica beans fell 19.3% to 2.67 million bags, while robusta came in 20.9% lower, at 107,267 bags, according to Cecafe.

The decline in exports “is mainly because we no longer have significant remnants of the record harvest of 2020, which would eventually compensate for the loss of the 2021 and 2022 crops,” Cecafe President Marcio Ferreira in a statement.

However, March shipments represent increases of 9% over January and 27% over February, according to Marcos Matos, Cecafe’s general director.

For him, this movement is justified by narrower spreads for the current harvest in New York, which encourages producers to accelerate the commercialization of the remaining coffee.

“It is possible that this factor will minimize the drop in volumes shipped in this last quarter of the current harvest” he said referring to the April-June period.

Prices in the Brazilian stock exchange, which reflect the domestic market, ended Tuesday at $245.00 per bag for the May contract, while the one expiring in September, already linked to the next crop, closed at $225.65.

“That is, a premium of $19.35 per bag over the future harvest,” Matos added.

With the performance in March, accumulated shipments for the 2022/23 harvest reached 27.756 million bags, 9% lower than the first nine months of the previous season.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nayara Figueiredo; Writing by Peter Frontini; Editing by Aurora Ellis)