Global Robusta crop in steep deficit: Rabobank

The global coffee supply/demand balance will see a deficit in Robusta and a surplus in Arabica for the 2016/17 crop year, according to Rabobank’s first quarter Commodity Market Report for the coffee industry. Overall, Rabobank is forecasting a small global deficit of 0.7 million bags for the coming crop year. This is a reduction on the bank’s previous forecast of a 3.7 million bag surplus, and comes on the back of lower-than-expected yields out of Brazil. The report states that Arabica is now forecast to have a 2.6 million bag surplus, down from an earlier estimate of 5.5 million bags. However, the drop in Brazil’s Robusta production to 12.6 million bags, 4.4 million bags below the country’s four-year average, is the main driver behind the predicted deficit of 3.3 million bags in the Robusta crop for the year, the report says. Rabobank goes on to warn that further problems could loom for Robusta markets if rains do not return to Vietnam’s coffee-growing areas in the next two to five weeks. Rabobank predicts that this deficit will see Robusta prices climbing in the coming months, going beyond the US$1560 per tonne that it reached on 12 April.