Vietnam coffee harvest slows as rain returns, hurting picking, drying

Coffee harvesting in Vietnam, the world’s biggest grower of robusta beans used in instant drinks and espressos, has been disrupted by renewed rains just one week after picking began, local officials and traders said.

Rains started Sunday and continued through Tuesday, hindering harvesting and drying that was already delayed by almost a month because of heavy showers, helping push global prices higher.

“The harvesting has slowed down due to the rains, and farmers can’t dry the beans in this wet weather,” said Nguyen Van An, general director of Thai Hoa Production & Trading Corp., the country’s third-biggest exporter. “This may also slow traders’ sales,” he said by phone today.

Robusta-coffee futures in London have jumped 39 percent this year and advanced to a two-year high of $2,098 a metric ton on Nov. 9 as rains delayed the Vietnam harvest. The March- delivery contract, the most-active by open interest, traded at $1,793 a ton at 6:35 p.m. Singapore time.

Rains are expected to last for another day, Nguyen Dai Nguong, general director of the Dak Lak Hydrology and Meteorology Office, said by phone today.

Harvesting in Dak Lak province, the country’s biggest growing region, was about 40 percent complete before the rains returned, Huynh Quoc Thich, head of the cultivation office in the province’s agricultural department, said by phone yesterday.

Harvesting should have started at the beginning of November, Nguyen Van Sinh, deputy head of the agricultural department in Dak Lak, said on Nov. 3.

Rainfall in Buon Ma Thuot, the capital of Dak Lak, totaled 250.4 millimeters between Nov. 1 and Nov. 20, compared with 89.4 millimeters in the same period last year, according to figures from the Dak Lak Hydrology and Meteorology Office.

Vietnam may produce 1.1 million tons of coffee this year, about 3 percent less than the previous year, according to an Oct. 29 forecast from the Vietnam Coffee & Cocoa Association.

A Bloomberg News survey of 10 growers, analysts and traders last month predicted an increase to 1.2 million tons. Officials in Dak Lak, Lam Dong and Gia Lai have all forecast production gains in their regions. – Bloomberg

Tags: Vietnam Coffee, Vietnam coffee output