Brazil is closing in on a record arabica coffee harvest, yet the more pressing question for the market sits further out, in the crop that has not been planted yet. El Niño is shaping up as the key weather wildcard for Brazil's next coffee crop, with the potential to push production either higher or lower depending on how the rains behave. A run of out of season rain has already nudged some coffee trees into early flowering, and that has growers and buyers watching the sky more closely than usual. What happens between the late winter dryness and the return of the main rains will go a long way toward setting the tone for the season ahead.
Leonardo Rossetti is a Market Intelligence Principal at StoneX in Campinas, Brazil, where he leads coffee analysis for the South American research team and runs field assessments across the country's main arabica and robusta growing regions. His crop surveys and harvest commentary track the conditions that shape Brazil's coffee output, the same conditions now unfolding across those regions as the next season sets up.
Key Themes
Unusually wet winter weather in Minas Gerais and São Paulo has disrupted drying and raised fermentation in some coffee lots.
Out of season rain has triggered isolated early flowering, pointing to a less uniform harvest rather than outright losses.
El Niño has coincided with both higher and lower Brazilian coffee output in past seasons, keeping the next crop uncertain.
Early Flowering Leaves Brazil's Next Coffee Crop More Exposed to Weather
Early out of season flowering across parts of Brazil's coffee belt has become the main worry for the next crop, because it strips young fruit of its usual timing and cover. "So far these flowering events have been isolated and have not occurred on a widespread basis", Rossetti explains, which keeps the immediate risk contained. As a result, the sharper concern is not the bloom itself but the early fruit set that follows, which loses its natural protection and meets dry spells or excessive heat far sooner than usual. For producers, that points to a less uniform harvest they can manage rather than an outright loss of Brazilian coffee output.
El Niño Has Pushed Brazilian Coffee Output Both Up and Down
El Niño is a genuine wildcard for Brazilian coffee rather than a one directional threat, because past El Niño seasons have coincided with both higher and lower production. The pattern brings greater weather volatility, so the market is treating the current El Niño as a risk to monitor into the end of the year rather than a settled outcome. That two sided record means El Niño cannot be read as an automatic negative for the next coffee crop, even as growers stay alert to a possible intensification. According to Rossetti, "weather patterns across many Brazilian coffee regions have remained close to normal so far", with forecasts pointing to near or above average rain in some producing areas in the months ahead.
Late Season Rains Will Shape Brazil's Next Coffee Crop
The return of consistent rain from late August into September is the real hinge for Brazil's next coffee crop, since that window drives the main flowering that sets the size of the harvest. A strong, well timed bloom supports a fuller crop, while a late or patchy start can leave the season uneven from the outset. Looking ahead, the market is focused, Rossetti says, on "the return of more consistent rainfall between late August and September", the stretch that will define the main bloom. For now, current indicators do not point to a critical scenario, even with El Niño sitting on the risk list into the close of the year.
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