By Claire Leow
June 17 (Bloomberg) -- Coffee and cocoa harvests in Indonesia may be delayed by heavy rainfall across southern Sumatra this week, according to a U.S.-based forecaster.
There would be “some potential harvest slowdowns” amid scattered showers, some of which would be heavy, Maryland-based MDA Information Systems Inc. said in an e-mailed statement today. The wet weather may slow cocoa pod drying, MDA said.
Indonesia, the second-largest Asian coffee producer, grows mainly robusta, with about two-thirds of the crop exported. The price of that variety, used in instant coffees and blends, has risen 21 percent this year, in part on an 18 percent jump in the seven days to June 15. The nation is also the No. 3 cocoa grower.
Indonesia may increase coffee output 5.7 percent in the year to March 31, 2011, as farmers switch from cocoa, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service said on June 1. Output may increase to 9.6 million 60-kilogram bags (576,000 tons) from 9.08 million the year before, of which 8.1 million bags would be robusta, the FAS said in a report.
Hassan Widjaja, the chairman of the Association of Indonesian Coffee Exporters, couldn’t be reached for comment by mobile phone today. Halim Razak, chairman of the Indonesian Cocoa Association, declined to comment when reached by phone in Sulawesi as he said he had no access to data while traveling.
Robusta futures in London traded today at $1,560 a metric ton after declining 0.4 percent, extending yesterday’s 0.3 percent drop. Cocoa futures have advanced 16 percent this year, and traded at $2,955 a ton today in New York.
Rains in Vietnam have been below average for the past month, MDA said. Rainfall may increase later this week in the Central Highlands, possibly aiding crop development, it said.
The Central Highlands region is the main coffee-growing region in Vietnam, the world’s largest producer after Brazil, and the biggest producer of robusta.
Weather-induced delays may add to concerns that there are “short-term difficulties, with diminished flows out of Vietnam before the flow out of Indonesia picks up,” Herve Touraine, a director at SW Commmodities Ltd., wrote in a weekly report on June 14.
Coffee exports from Vietnam fell 15 percent in the first five months of the year to 559,000 tons compared with the same period a year earlier, Touraine said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Claire Leow in Singapore at cleow@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: June 17, 2010 05:01 EDT
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