Coffee grains are roaring amid the crisis that is splashing across most sectors of Colombia’s economy.
In mid-April and Early May, 6.5 million bags will begin to be collected. Under current circumstances, the harvest is a rescue for families dependent on informal activities that were frozen by the mandatory isolation because of the coronavirus.
Other sections of the economy see the gray outlook. Still, the high price of the dollar puts coffee growing in an exciting reality.
Despite the reduction in production in January and February, coffee is being harvested.
The domestic price per load has reached record levels, above 1,300,000 on Wednesday, March 25. On the New York Stock Exchange, the pound of grain has long traded above $1.
Oswaldo Acevedo, the owner of the company Café Mesa de Los Santos, said that Colombia had spent decades investing in increasing per capita coffee consumption to the levels of those of Brazil or the US. It resulted in one failure after another. There are 2,000 or more new brands of specialty coffees ready to try.
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A Favorable Outlook
The manager of the Federation of Coffee Growers says that the internal price per load of coffee has doubled in 12 months. It is a piece of good news for the 530,000 families in the country who depend on this product.
Between 2015 and 2019, the workforce had left the industry because of the low prices. It caused producers to migrate to other crops, and luckily, productivity has increased.
In the first semester, the country forecasts to collect 6.5 million bags of coffee, with a maximum of 6.8 and a minimum of 6.2.
Five years ago, the Sica (Coffee Information System) registered 920,000 hectares of crops, while today, it totaled 855,000 hectares.
The manager of the Federation of Coffee states that despite having 60 000 hectares less, production is equal or greater than that time. The increase in productivity has been significant enough for production to continue.
Colombia’s Harvests of coffee
In Colombia, 603 municipalities grow coffee, which is equivalent to more than half of the country’s territorial entities. For the total of the year, counting the two harvests, the Federation of Coffee Growers estimates that the production is similar to that of the previous year. Landing someone between 14 and 14.5 million bags.
It is a sizable average harvest with excellent prices. A combination that can result if everything ends like this, a value of between 9 and 9.5 billion pesos. It is 2 billion more than the previous year, almost more than 25 percent, said the manager of the union. He points out that despite two or three tough years of coffee farming, Colombia has one of the most profitable harvests in history.
In the current circumstances, coffee farming can provide a labor force that is unemployed due to the current situation. The harvest requires 150,000 collectors, many of them are regular workers in their areas, but they will also be hired.
However, the accommodation scheme used in the coffee plantations is the concern amid the prohibition of social closeness. The issue needs coordination, and some questions need to be resolved.
