El Nino Looms Large Over Global Crop Production

Extreme weather caused by the El Nino phenomenon could hit global crops from coffee to coconuts over the next few months, according to predictions from analysts around the world.

The worst El Nino episode, in 1982-83, triggered floods or drought in more than 15 countries and caused at least $13 billion in damage.

El Nino, a warm current of water in the Pacific which can occur around Christmas, affects much of the worlds weather. Its appearance is associated with drought in southern Africa, eastern Australia, Papua New Guinea,

Indonesia and other nearby regions and with wet weather on west coast regions of the American continents. This year experts are increasingly convinced that a strong El Nino is gathering force.

The El Nino factor has created uncertainty on world markets in coffee,cocoa, coconut and cereals crops. El Nino is a constant guessing game, international commodities brokers GNI said. Impacts on agricultural production all over the globe are not straightforward, but could be enormous, said Oil World, a newsletter for the edible oil industry.

It could threaten oil-bearing crops such as soybean, oil palm and coconut, as well as cereals and fish catches. South-east Asian palmoil yields could be reduced in a long-term pattern from 1998 and smaller fish catches in the Pacific due to the warm current could cut Peruvian fishmeal exports, it added. Coconut output in the Philippines may also drop next year if a forecast drought due to El Nino this year matches the dry spell that hit the country in 1982 and 1983, a local official said.

In London,. Coffee futures rose to two week highs last Friday on concerns that El Nino could hurt the crop in Indonesia, the worlds largest producer of the robusta variety.