Indonesian coffee output down 24% due to El Nino
Indonesian coffee output down 24% due to El Nino
JAKARTA (JP): A prolonged dry spell, believed to have been
triggered by the El Nino weather phenomenon, is blamed for a 24
percent drop in the country's coffee output for the production
year ending on Sept. 30.
The director of Jember, East Java-based Indonesian Coffee and
Cocoa Research Center, Oskari Atmawinata, said on Tuesday that
local production fell to 5.7 million 60-kilogram bags (342,000
metric tons) from the usual annual output of 450,000 tons.
It was due to the "severe drought in June-December period last
year which has damaged coffee crops", Antara news agency quoted
him as saying on the sidelines of a symposium on coffee in
Surabaya, East Java.
Excessive rainfall during the June-November flowering period
damaged plants and young pods while a dry spell from January to
March damaged the developing seeds, he said.
El Nino is caused by a warming of the Pacific Ocean which
interacts with other weather systems and typically produces freak
weather patterns, such as drought in some areas and heavier than
normal rainfall in others.
The phenomenon, which occurs every two to seven years, has
unleashed natural disasters around the world, damaging crops for
two successive years and causing turmoil on world commodities
markets.
Indonesia is the world's third largest coffee producer after
Brazil and Colombia. Ninety percent of the country's production
is robusta and the remainder arabica.
The country is the world's largest producer of robusta, whose
harvest is between April and September, and provides 24 percent
of global robusta production. Robusta is extensively used in the
instant coffee industry.
The Association of Indonesian Coffee Exporters (AICE) has said
the country's coffee exports dropped by 18.69 percent to 309,000
metric tons worth US$550 million in the 1997/1998 coffee year --
compared to 380,000 tons and $675 million the previous coffee
year -- due to El Nino.
AICE's executive secretary Noer Madjid also predicted the
country's coffee output would continue to decline this year by a
further 30 percent because of the La Nia reverse weather pattern
which would cause higher rainfall than normal.
He said heavy rains had affected coffee crops in major
producing areas such as South Sumatra, Lampung and Bengkulu,
which together account for about 65 percent of the country's
production.
Coffee is the third largest foreign exchange earner among
plantation commodities after rubber and palm oil, contributing
about 22 percent of the agricultural export value.
Oskari said tight supplies on Indonesian coffee had provided
Vietnamese coffee, Indonesia's main rival, a boost in demand.
He said that Vietnam's coffee production in 1997/1998 coffee
year reached 5.7 million bags, equal to Indonesia's coffee
production.
"In 1995/1996 they produced only 4 million bags, and look at
them now," he said.
Meanwhile, Oskari said Indonesia was expected to produce 10
million bags of robusta coffee and 3 million bags of arabica
coffee in 2005 to meet the global demand of 40 million bags and
80 million bags of robusta and arabica respectively.
"It is a challenge and opportunity for the Indonesian coffee
community," he said. (gis)