Sao Paulo, Aug 20, 2009 - Coffee shipments from Colombia, the world's No. 3 exporter, are normal after delays in recent months due to a shortage of beans, Colombian Agriculture Minister Andres Fernandez said on Thursday.
Private coffee stocks are rising and now total around 700,000 60-kg bags, down from a historical average of between 3 million and 3.5 million bags but sufficient to meet delivery obligations over the interharvest period.
"Colombia had delays (in shipments) to the international market, but now they are back on time. They are normalized," Fernandez said, adding there were no defaults.
The Colombian minister was in Sao Paulo with business leaders to promote the Andean nation's agriculture potential and attract investments.
Flowering of the new coffee crop, which will begin harvesting in October, was "very good" and output could reach 11.5 million 60-kg bags. This would be up from 10.5 million bags from the previous season, when rains hurt the crop, he said.
The second half of 2008 was the wettest in Colombia in 15 years.
A top supplier of mild arabicas, Colombia has produced in the past up to 14 million bags of coffee, its main export item, with an annual revenue of around $2.5 billion.
Besides weather problems, output in 2008 was affected by a program to replace old coffee trees with new ones.
Farmers are replanting on average 60,000 hectares per year, and 300,000 hectares out of a total planted area of 876,000 hectares are still expected to be replanted in the coming years, Fernandez said.
"By 2012/13, we want to have 100 percent of our coffee area planted with new varieties, more resistant to diseases and more productive," he said.
CANE
Fernandez also said the recent spike in sugar futures prices to their highest level in nearly 30 years in New York would likely boost cane planting in Colombia.
Several mills have announced plans to increase the planted area with cane, which totals 240,000 hectares -- 200,000 hectares of which is directed to sugar production and the rest to ethanol production.
"This would worry me, if we did not have the capacity to produce ethanol," Fernandez said, noting that producers could divert more cane to ethanol in case of a drop in sugar prices.
Colombia's ethanol production capacity is currently 1 million liters per day and is expected to top 1.4 million liters per day by the end of this year, when two new crushing plants should have begun operations.