Mexico City, Sept 22 - Coffee exports from Honduras will not be hit by a flare up in the country's worst political crisis in decades because the 2008/09 harvest is virtually over, the head of the National Coffee Fund told Reuters on Tuesday.
Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya, who was toppled in a coup in June, ended almost three months of exile by sneaking back into Honduras on Monday and taking refuge in the Brazilian embassy, which sparked a standoff between his supporters and the de facto government.
Honduras, Central America's second largest coffee producer after Guatemala, will close its harvest cycle at the end of September and almost all beans have already been shipped, said Samuel Reyes, a coffee producer who directs the coffee infrastructure fund.
"The political situation in the country is not affecting the coffee sector," Reyes said in a telephone interview.
Honduras could export up to 3.53 million 60-kg bags of coffee in the 2009/10 cycle, 9.6 percent more than the year-ago period as growers invest in farms, the national coffee institute has said.
The 2009/10 season begins in October but the bulk of picking is done between December and March, Reyes said.
Only about 5 percent to 10 percent of the harvest is collected over the next couple of months, when tensions will be high in the country ahead of November presidential elections.
Honduran security forces have clashed with protesters supporting Zelaya, who have sporadically closed roads in the interior, complicating transport.
A curfew imposed by the de facto government shut down the border with El Salvador to commercial cargo and private vehicles on Tuesday.