Re: Brazil - where is the coffee?
I would really LOVE to see someone actually answering Marco's question, and as he says, with at the very minimum plausible justification for WHERE the coffee is? As many of you are well aware, I made an on-the-ground extensive field trip across the coffee regions worst hit from Aug 3-11, traveling over 2500 km overland from southern SP,through SOuthern Minas -- including Alfenas and Varginha which are normally major hubs for stocks of new crop in warehouses -- through Alta Mogiana, Araxa and Cerrado where I concentrated on worst hit Patrocinio area. I have been traveling SO many times to Brazil during more than 20 years, many times at the peak of harvest or end-of-harvest activity, and the quietness around the traditional was deafening. With one SOLE exemption of a OLAM warehouse where 3 trucks were waiting to deliver coffee there was ZERO activity, not a single truck waiting in line to deliver coffee at any single warehouse along the entire trip. Multiple agronomists working with both many different coops as well as private exporters told me there is no or very little activity "because the coffee is not there" and at this point when I spoke to them the Arabica harvest was mostly about 80% completed. This is WAY too much coffee, just as Marco says, to keep in hiding. While a number of producers and farms effectively are running late because of the last late flowering around Nov. 1st last year, we are max talking 3 weeks delay. And even if we try to be "generous" in our evaluation of this situation and add some logistical complications from Covid restrictions adding SOME more delay the figures simply do not add up!! There is no doubt that the drought damage resulting in small bean size reducing expected yields by at least 20 percent in overall numbers are causing a significant lower than expected harvest, but at this point, quite frankly, it is deeply irresponsible of exporters and trade not to be more for-coming about what the real supply situation is. If the market can incorporate a better and more accurate figure for a lower crop, that will allow the entire coffee value chain from farmer to roaster to actually start planning again and avoid the crazy out-of-control price shocks we saw in July -- but by not doing so this is setting the market up for not only new record highs but very likely highs approaching or around the $4 mark. I have said that since the days after the Jul 19-20 frost and my trip and being able to assess crop damage across a region representing 65% of the entire annual coffee harvest in Brazil only confirmed that further. As I have said all along, the more data and information come out from producing region only go to confirm that damage is much more severe and impact much higher than initial estimates indicate. Please, Marco's question is of real strategic importance and it would be welcome to see someone here actually trying to answer it in stead of trying to change the topic!!
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