World to experience coffee shortage as farmers in Brazil runs out of water

Brazil, the world's biggest exporter of coffee, sugar and orange juice, has only had one rainy season that has produced almost no rain. The land has dried up, and river levels are low in the country's Center-South region, a powerhouse of agricultural production. The drought is so critical that farmers are worried that they will run out of water reserves, which will help keep the crops alive for the next few months, the country's dry season. Mauricio Pinheiro, 59, started irrigating his arabica coffee crops in March, two months earlier than usual, after his 53-hectare plantation received less than half the rain. He uses so much water for the plants that there is not enough left for his house. To keep the showers and faucet running, he had to look for another well. "My irrigation reservoir is now drying up - it usually happens in August," said Pinheiro, who lives in Pedregulho in the Alta Mogiana region of the state of Sao Paulo. "I'm apprehensive about the next few months' lacks of water." The prospect of drying up orange trees and coffee plants comes when crops are rising to perennial highs, which has fueled fears of food inflation. Higher food costs could exacerbate hunger, a problem around the world that has further compounded the Covid-19 pandemic. Coffee and raw sugar contracts at the ICE Futures exchange in New York have already hit four-year highs. If even irrigated areas cannot get enough water, coffee and oranges production in Brazil could decline for the second year in a row. The current orange harvest in Brazil has shrunk by 31% from the previous season, the most in 33 years, and the production of arabica coffee, the high quality used by chains such as Starbucks Corp, is also declining sharply. JohnWorb, CEO of aWhere Inc., had catastrophic low rainfall in many areas in Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais from January to April. So that the beans can grow, it is also a period in which the soil stores water to cope with the dry season. It came last year in some parts, mainly in Sao Paulo and Parana, due to more unfavourable, drier conditions than average, said Paul Markert, a meteorologist from Maxar Technologies Inc. in Maryland, said. Although a dry game is typical for this time of year in Brazil, it is expected to last longer than usual, which will contribute to concern. Steady rain will return to the region between October and November instead of September, said Celso Oliveira, a meteorologist from Somar Meteorologia. About 30% of Brazil's orange produce and 15% of the arabica coffee fields are irrigated. "The levels of rivers and lakes are very worrying," said Regis Ricco, director of RR Consultoria Rural based in Minas Gerais. Francisco Sergio de Assis, a coffee farmer in Monte Carmelo, a town in the Cerrado region of Minas Gerais, began irrigating his lands a month early and does not think his water reservoirs will last if it does not rain by September. The situation is growing critical for the orange farmer. Emerson Facchini, an orange farmer who farms 45 acres in the Palestinian municipality in Sao Paulo, said irrigation systems have been turned on most of the time since January. "Water reservoirs are drying up, just before the dry season depleted," Gilberto Tozatti, of Citrus Consulting, GCONCI Group in Sao Paulo, said by telephone. "The situation is impacting most of Sao Paulo State and is still hurting next season's crop."