By Oliver Griffin
Brasilia, May 13 (Reuters) – Brazil’s robusta coffee harvest is just starting in the state of Espirito Santo, where cooperative Cooabriel expects crop output slightly below the previous season but with better quality, said Luiz Carlos Bastianello, the cooperative’s president.
Cooabriel is Brazil’s largest cooperative for canephora coffees, which include the conilon varieties but are typically known under the catch-all term robusta.
“What we have seen so far – and what we should really see here in Espirito Santo – is a crop slightly below the crop we had in 2025, with better quality,” Bastianello said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday afternoon.
While it is too early to forecast how many 60-kilogram (132.3 lb) bags this year’s harvest will produce, Bastianello said initial deliveries were confirming the cooperative’s expectations.
Brazil’s Conab crop agency has forecast the country’s 2026 canephora crop at 22.1 million bags, 6.4% higher than the previous year, with the majority produced in Espirito Santo.
The war in Iran and its effects on prices of fertilizers and other agricultural inputs, pushing them upwards as global shipping slows in the Strait of Hormuz due to the conflict, is worrying, Bastianello said.
Rising costs for farmers also coincide with lower robusta coffee prices. During the same period a year ago, bags were fetching 1,700 reais ($346.23) each, but have now fallen to 880 reais, he said.
“Perhaps in the 2025-26 harvest this impact won’t be as noticeable because this increase in input costs happened in recent months,” Bastianello said. “However, if we consider the 2026-27 harvest period, this does cause concern regarding production costs.”
Last year, the government of Espirito Santo told Reuters it was working to help coffee farmers boost their output of higher quality canephora coffees, which have traditionally been used in instant coffee and espresso blends.
Improving quality was of utmost importance, Bastianello said, adding that it could help farmers unlock better income.
“It’s time for us to work very hard on this quality, which sometimes is actually just a change in the producer’s behavior,” he said.
($1 = 4.91 Brazilian reais)
(Reporting by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Paul Simao)
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