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.