BOGOTA: Colombia’s coffee production climbed 16 percent last month to 1,058,000 60-kilogram (132-pound) bags, up from 912,000 bags in September 2014, the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation, or FNC, said.
Output between January and September amounted to 10 million bags, up 13 percent from the 8.8 million bags produced in the same period of last year, the institution said in a press release Tuesday.
Coffee production between October 2014 and September 2015 amounted to 13.3 million bags, up 10 percent from the 12.1 million bags registered in the prior 12-month period.
“We’re pleased with the coffee production levels achieved over the past 12 months,” FNC chief Roberto Velez Vallejo was quoted as saying.
The effect of El Niño in several coffee-producing provinces will be apparent in the coming months, he said, adding that the FNC is “working hard to reduce the impact on coffee growers’ income.”
That weather phenomenon is responsible for a “significant reduction in rainfall in the Andean Colombian region, leading to a deficiency in soil moisture (especially in unshaded coffee plantations),” the organization said on Sept. 18.
It estimated then that “nearly 18 percent of the expected harvest for the second (half) of 2015 will be compromised in one way or another” by El Niño.
Coffee exports, meanwhile, rose to 1,093,000 bags in September, up 32 percent from the same month of 2014. Year-to-date exports were up 17 percent to 9.2 million bags.
Exports in the 12 months that ended on Sept. 30, 2015, climbed to 12.3 million bags, up 13 percent from the period that ran from October 2013 to September 2014.
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