Coffee Prices See Support from Slow Brazil Harvest

September arabica coffee (KCU26) on Friday closed up +5.00 (+1.50%), and September ICE robusta coffee (RMU26) closed down -45 (-1.23%).

Coffee prices have support from the slow pace of Brazil's coffee harvest.  Safras & Mercado reported Friday that the Brazil 2026/27 coffee harvest was 90% completed as of August 12, behind 97% last year and the 5-year average of 94%.  Brazil's arabica coffee harvest was 86% complete, behind last year's 95%. Meanwhile, the harvest among members of Cooxupe co-op was 74.6% complete as of August 7, behind last year's comparable figure of 80.4%, according to a report released on Wednesday.

Coffee prices were mixed Friday as market participants assess the extent of disruptions to coffee exports from Colombia due to Monday's devastating earthquake.  Among the areas hit by Monday's 7.4 magnitude quake were the coffee-growing provinces of Caldas and Risaralda, which account for about a quarter of Colombia's production. 

Colombia has partially resumed coffee exports through the Buenaventura port, which handles most of Colombia's coffee exports, according to a Bloomberg report Thursday quoting the head of Colombia's coffee exporters association, Asoexport.  Yet, traffic through the port remains intermittent and limited.  The report said the earthquake caused no significant damage to coffee processing and milling facilities, according to exporters.

Falling inventories are bullish for arabica coffee prices, as ICE arabica coffee inventories fell to a 2.75-year low of 231,445 bags on Friday.  By contrast, rising inventories are bearish for robusta coffee as ICE robusta inventories climbed to a 5-month high of 4,537 lots on Friday.

Below-normal rainfall in Brazil should speed up the pace of the country's coffee harvest, a bearish factor for prices.  Somar Meteorologia reported on Monday that 5.8 mm of rain, or 92% of the historical average, fell in the week ended August 9 in Brazil's Minas Gerais, the country's main arabica-coffee growing region.

Concerns that an El Niño weather pattern could hurt Brazil's coffee crop next year are bullish for prices. Coffee trader Commercial said the El Niño weather pattern may delay rains in Brazil this September and October, when tree flowering normally occurs, hurting Brazil's 2026/27 coffee crop. On July 8, the US Climate Prediction Center said the El Niño weather pattern that emerged across the equatorial Pacific last month will likely be one of the strongest in more than 75 years. This sets the stage for months of possible floods, droughts, and temperature fluctuations later this year that could hinder coffee production in Asia and South America. 

Soaring coffee exports from Vietnam, the world's largest robusta producer, are bearish for robusta prices.  On August 2, Vietnam's National Statistics Office reported that Vietnam's 2026 coffee exports (Jan-Jul) rose by +21.1% y/y to 1.31 MMT.  Vietnam's 2025 coffee exports jumped by +17.5% y/y to 1.58 MMT. Also, Vietnam's 2025/26 coffee production is projected to climb +6% y/y to a 4-year high of 1.76 MMT (29.4 million bags).

The latest USDA biannual forecast was bearish for coffee prices.  On July 22, the USDA forecast that global coffee output in the 2026-27 season will rise by +6.0% (10.8 million bags) to a record 189.7 million bags, mainly due to improved growing conditions in Brazil.  The USDA expects global arabica production to rise +12% y/y, although robusta production is expected to fall by -0.7% y/y.  World ending stocks are expected to rise +1.9 million bags to 26.3 million bags.  On June 3, the USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) forecast a record 2026/27 Brazil coffee crop of 71.9 million bags, up +14% y/y.