El Nino raises 1998 coffee crop concerns

El Nino raises 1998 coffee crop concerns

SINGAPORE (Reuter): A dry spell, believed to have been
triggered by the El Nino weather pattern, is beginning to bite on
Indonesian coffee farms and may disrupt the current tree
flowering for next year's crop, traders said yesterday.

"It's very dry, much drier than is normally the case this time
of the year. The effects of El Nino are starting to hit. If you
don't have any rains and the coffee trees are flowering, it may
affect production," a veteran coffee dealer told Reuters.

Another dealer said several Indonesian coffee farms "have got
emergency irrigation. But this dry spell is going to do some harm
somewhere."

El Nino, named after the Christ child by Peruvian fishermen to
describe the phenomenon of unusually warm Pacific Ocean
temperatures off the coast of South America, normally peaks
around December and can affect weather patterns worldwide.

Meteorologists have warned this year's El Nino may have
arrived early and could match the century's worst in 1982-1983,
which blighted crops in Indonesia, Australia, the Philippines and
southern Africa after a blistering drought.

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

One trader said next year's possible fall in coffee output in
Indonesia, the world's third leading coffee producer behind
Brazil and Colombia, may be even more drastic than the 20-25
percent drop expected for the 1997 crop.

"The fall in Indonesia's production next season may even be
more severe because of this El Nino," he said.

Indonesia is the world's largest producer of the robusta grade
of coffee and its harvest runs between April and September.

Robusta coffee is more bitter in taste than higher grade
arabica coffee, which is predominantly grown in Central and South
America, but also in East Africa and India.