Brazil: coffee production 2010-2020

Coffee production in Brazil was forecast to reach more than 61.6 million 60-kilogram bags in 2020, up from 49.3 million bags a year earlier. Coffee crops are characterized by a biennial effect in harvest yields, in which production yields are very high one year, and comparably low in the following. 2020 is a so-called “positive biennial year”.

Agricultural cultivation

Brazil is by far the largest coffee producer worldwide, while in the domestic sector, the commodity accounted for around five percent of the agricultural production value in 2019. Nonetheless, the area planted with coffee in Brazil has been on an overall decreasing trend throughout the past decade, compensated in recent years by an increase in average yield.

Coffee varieties

The Arabica variety, one of the first coffee species ever cultivated, and normally associated with finer, more aromatic coffees, represented nearly 70 percent of the Brazilian coffee output in 2019. Although Arabica is more sensitive to the biennial effect than Robusta coffee, this varieties’ higher market prices offsets the lower yield. In fact, the revenue generated by Arabica coffee in Brazil reached almost 18 billion Brazilian reals in 2019.