Indonesia’s 2020-21 coffee production crop cycle is down by 1.3-1.6 million 60-kilogram bags of the expected output. The decreased production was blamed on climate change, which is said to have affected the development of beans and losses of cherries due to the fruit falling to the ground under heavy rain.
The harvest reached an estimate of 10.5-10.7 million bags, according to private traders and exporters in Indonesia, as well as the US Department for Agriculture (USDA). This is lower than the forecasted 12.1 million bags predicted by the Indonesian Agriculture Ministry.
Due to weather problems, beans weren’t able to fully develop and the cherry ripening stage was affected – coffee cherries were lost to the heavy rains as fruits fell to the ground and cracked.
At the beginning of the harvest we had a lot of hope that this crop year which now has been completed would have produced a good output, but the rains were too heavy and in many coffee regions especially in Sumatra the rains came in much above the normal levels and caused harm to the crop.
An official from Indonesia’s Coffee Exporters Association
The decline in coffee production in Indonesia due to climate change is expected to continue for the 2021-22 crop cycle. According to a USDA report released last May, the estimated harvest for the next crop is 10.63 million bags.
Indonesia is the fourth largest coffee producing country in the world, and its low production harvest follows the same pattern of the first three growers — Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia — which harvests were also affected by climate change like irregular weather, extreme rain and heat patterns.
Even though local coffee consumption and exports will be higher for the new crop cycle, Indonesia’s shortfall in production is worrisome. With the other major coffee-producing regions also facing similar outcomes and international analysts forecasting the biggest deficit to global supply-demand balance in the past five decades, a global coffee shortage might be upon us sooner than we might think.
