The news on Colombian coffee doesn’t get any better.
Exports from the second-biggest force in arabica beans, after Brazil, fell by 25% year on year in September, to 820,000 bags, according to the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros.
That took the total for the 2021-22 coffee year, on an October-to-September basis, to 11.87m bags, the worst performance in seven seasons.
The decline reflects a dip in production, which slumped by 31% year on year last month to 834,000 bags, leaving total 2021-22 output at 8.16m bags. That is the lowest total since 2013-14, when the country’s output was recovering from a replanting spree with trees resistant to the rust fungus which had dogged the country for years. (Output peaked in 1991-92, at 17.98m bags.)
Production has now fallen for a second successive coffee marketing year, in a decline blamed on excessive rains linked to the persistent La Nina.
Exports, unusually, exceeded production, suggesting a notable drawdown in Colombia’s inventories.
| Season | Production |
Year on year change | Exports | Year on year change | |
| 2021-22 | 11,683 | -12.8% | 11,869 | -7.2% | |
| 2020-21 | 13,394 | -5.0% | 12,788 | +1.1% | |
| 2019-20 | 14,100 | +1.7% | 12,647 | -6.2% | |
| 2018-19 | 13,866 | +0.4% | 13,482 | +6.3% | |
| 2017-18 | 13,815 | -5.6% | 12,684 | -5.9% | |
| 2016-17 | 14,634 | +4.5% | 13,485 | +9.5% | |
| 2015-16 | 14,009 | +5.1% | 12,315 | +0.3% | |
| 2014-15 | 13,333 | +10.0% | 12,278 | +13.2% | |
| 2013-14 | 12,124 | +22.1% | 10,842 | +22.6% | |
| 2012-13 | 9,927 | +29.7% | 8,847 | +21.2% | |
| 2011-12 | 7,653 | -10.2% | 7,297 | -9.5% |
