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Saturday 02 August
2008, San José, Costa Rica
Costa Rica 2008-09 Coffee Crop
Seen Down 5.5%
Costa Rican coffee production in
the next 2008-09 harvest cycle
is forecast to drop 5.5% to
1,773,451 (60-kilogram) bags,
the Costa Rican Coffee
Institute, or Icafe, said
Friday.
This compares to total output in
the now completed 2007-08
harvest of 1,875,977 bags, an
Icafe official told Dow Jones
Newswires by telephone from San
Jose, releasing details from the
first preliminary report on the
new crop.
Harvesting for the 2008-09 crop
won't start in earnest until
mid-October, but the flowering
season was completed in June and
the maturation of the young
green cherries are now underway
across producing areas, he said.
The 2007-08 coffee harvest was
estimated to have ended up 3.7%
to 1,875,977 bags, compared to
total production of 1,808,948
bags in the 2006-07 crop cycle
(October-September), Icafe said
earlier this year.
Exports from the 2007-08
harvest, meanwhile, are still on
track to reach 1,709,710 bags,
up 16% from 2006-07 exports of
1,471,742 bags, the Icafe
official said. Exports from the
2007-08 crop cycle continue
through September.
An estimated 86% of Costa Rica's
total production is sold on the
export market based on the
average over the last three
years, but industry officials
said the 2006-07 harvest cycle
ended with "significant"
carryover stocks.
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