Tea, coffee output to dip on bad weather, pest attack

India’s tea and coffee output is likely to fall in the 2010-11 crop season due to excess rainfall in certain regions of the country along with pest attacks.

While overall production of coffee is expected to be lower by 2.6 per cent than the previous estimate of 308,000 tonnes in the 2010-11 season, it is likely to see a slight drop of 1.5 per cent against 990 million bags estimated earlier for this year.

“With heavy rainfall in some key growing zones of Karnataka and recent pest attacks, coffee output is likely to be around 300,000 tonnes in this crop season,” a top Coffee Board official said on the sidelines of the United Planters Association of Southern India (Upasi)’s annual conference here.

Coffee Board of India had, earlier, estimated coffee output at 308,000 tonnes.

The official, however, said Coffee Board would release the post-monsoon production estimates in November.

According to industry sources, heavy rainfall in Coorg, which is one of the key coffee growing region of Karnataka, will see fall in output, dragging the overall figures. However, the official said the damage would be limited to robusta variety while there would be no impact on the arabica variety output. India, the third-largest producer of Coffee, is estimated to produce 289,000 tonnes in the current crop year ending September, up by 10 per cent over last year.

According to the Coffee Board, the country exported 208,114 tonnes coffee in the January-September period, up by 57 per cent over the same period last year.

Similarly, tea output is likely to fall by 10-15 million kg in the 2010 season due to adverse weather.

“All indications show that tea output will be lower by 10-15 million kg in the current year on account of adverse weather conditions,” Roshni Sen, deputy chairman of the Tea Board of India said. India produced 979 million kg tea as compared to 980 million kg in the previous year. The production of tea in July fell three per cent to 123.2 million kg, a 3.2 per cent drop over the corresponding period last year, due to lower production in Assam and West Bengal.

However, Sen said the domestic consumption is witnessing an upward trend, reducing dependency on exports. Tea Board is also exploring possibilities of introducing futures in the next five-year plan in a bid to have better price discovery of the commodity, she added.