Small coffee farmers challenged by Brazil’s ‘natural’ coffee for premium markets

Coffee traders said Brazilian arabica coffee, usually rated lower grade, arrived in massive volumes on the world’s main price-setting market.

The large volumes of lower grade Brazilian coffee pose a fresh challenge for hand-harvested premium beans from less efficient, smaller farms elsewhere in Africa and Latin America.

Brazil, an agricultural powerhouse, cultivates almost half of the global arabica beans produced, the majority of which are machine-harvested on large plantations. However, some of its arabica coffee beans— known as unwashed or "natural" arabicas —have previously been overlooked for high-end benchmark coffee contracts all over the world.

Global coffee traders are now adding these incredibly tasty Brazilian arabica beans to the bags used to settle these contracts, traders revealed to reporters. These changes marked a previously unreported structural change set to impact global coffee prices in the long term, industry insiders and traders reported.

Cecafe, the Brazilian coffee exporters association, confirmed that Brazilian arabica beans were now being included in exchange stocks and reported that it was in recognition of their improved quality and taste.

The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) declined to answer the question about whether it was informed of the change in bean types backing its contracts but commented that the exchange’s grading process was designed to uphold standards.

While the news could relieve the coffee aficionados battling food price inflation, it only drives the dagger deeper into long-struggling African and Latin American farms where coffee trees grow on steep, shaded slopes where Brazilian-style harvesting vehicles are unsuitable.