El Nino could ruin Indonesian 1998 coffee crop

El Nino could ruin Indonesian 1998 coffee crop

SINGAPORE (Reuter): An extending drought in Indonesia, linked
to the El Nino weather phenomenon, may wreak havoc on the
country's coffee output next year unless badly needed rains reach
the trees soon, dealers said yesterday.

"The coffee trees are bearing fruit. If they don't get rain by
early September, you're going to have a lot of unripened or
shriveled beans," one coffee trader told Reuters.

"If the weather stays the way it is, production is going to
worse than this year. It could be 40 percent down in 1998."

Indonesian coffee output is expected to be down by about 30
percent this year to between 270,000-290,000 tons.

"We could see it fall to 220,000 (tons)," a dealer said.

Another senior coffee dealer said the prospects for next
year's crop "depends pretty much on the El Nino."

"What the El Nino does is push the rains clouds over the
oceans. The rain then falls over the water and not on Indonesia.
That could be a problem. The trade is watching this very
carefully," he said.

An Indonesian exporter said there seems no respite from the
dry conditions over the country's coffee farms.

"There is no rain in Sulawesi, no rain in Lampung. This El
Nino is very worrisome. If it doesn't rain in September, we're
going to have problems," he said.

The exporter said he had heard reports some wells dug for
irrigation on farms are beginning to dry up.

"The (coffee) flowers are O.K., but they need rain."

The El Nino takes place when unusually warm Pacific ocean
temperatures appear off the coast of South America reaching a
peak in December and disrupting weather patterns worldwide.

Warning

Meteorologists have warned this year's El Nino has shown up
early and could rival the century's worst in 1982/83 when crops
were blighted by a searing drought in Australia, the Philippines,
Indonesia and South Africa.

Floods swamped India and the deserts of Peru and Chile, severe
winter storms ravaged California and record snowfalls piled up in
the Rocky Mountains of North America.

The floods, drought and storms in some 15 countries around the
world caused billions of dollars worth of damage.

The fall in coffee output in Indonesia from this El Nino may
be offset somewhat by what the trade sees as a bumper robusta
crop in regional rival Vietnam.

"I heard Vietnam is doing very well," a dealer said.

Another trader said some dry weather in Vietnam over the past
few days "would even help the crop so we don't get any problems
drying the beans."

Most of the trade believes Vietnam's coffee production will
probably rise 10 percent this year from 1996 and reach between
300,000 to 320,000 tons. Of the total, about 290,000 to 300,000
tons will be available for export.