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Arabica coffee harvest is likely to be prolonged due to uneven and extended rain, which will add up to their costs, growers say.
Key coffee-growing regions have been witnessing continuous rains and the lack of adequate sunshine is seen delaying the ripening process of arabica beans — that are traditionally harvested from November.
“Ripening of arabica beans is delayed this year due to continuous rains. This will lead to longer duration of bean picking this year, which would mean more costs for the growers,” said N Ramanathan, Chairman, Karnataka Planters’ Association (KPA), the apex growers’ body.
The fly picking — harvesting of early ripened beans for the 2022-23 crop year starting October — has started in some areas, Ramanathan said. However, the extended rains are seen as posing a challenge, which may impact the quality of the beans. “Normally, the harvest of arabica beans gets over in 30-45 days with two rounds of picking, but this year, we expect the harvesting process may go beyond 60 days due to the uneven ripening forcing growers to go for multiple rounds of picking,” he said.
Excess rainfall
As per the Karnataka Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, the cumulative rainfall from June 1-October 19 in key coffee producing districts of Kodagu, Chikkamagaluru and Hassan has been higher than normal by 8 per cent, 19 per cent and 46 per cent, respectively. Karnataka accounts for about 70 per cent of the country’s coffee output.
“It is still raining and there’s some loss of crop due to bean dropping. The challenge this year is producing quality arabicas. Lack of adequate sunshine is not only resulting in uneven ripening, but will also affect drying of processed beans. Normally, the Indian coffees are sun-dried. With prolonged cloudy outlook and reduction in sunlight hours, growers are not taking any chance and investing in poly houses and driers to dry their coffees,” said Bose Mandanna, a large arabica grower.
Coffee Board, in its initial post-blossom estimates, had pegged the 2022-23 crop at a record 3.93 lakh tonnes (lt) comprising 1.16 lt arabica and 2.77 lt robusta. However, due to the excess and continuing rains, the Board expects the crop to be lower by 10-15 per cent over its initial estimates.
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