Coffee Board breathes easy as morning showers stop

BANGALORE:
The morning time rainfalls which washed away the pollen grains on the first twenty-four hours of the
blossoming of the Arabica java harvest in Mysore on Saturday did not present an
encore on Lord'S Day and Monday. India’s Coffee Board
chairman GV Krishna Rau, who had on Saturday expressed serious concern if the
blossoms were hit by morning time rainfall on Lord'S Day and Monday, told ET: “Our
anxiety have been alleviated. The blossoming time period is for three days. The damage
has been confined to the first twenty-four hours and we gauge that not more than than 5,000
tonne of the approaching 2008-09 harvest will be lost.” (Harvesting of Arabica
beans gets in November.) Morning rainfalls on the years of
blossoming of the java harvest are dreaded because they rinse away the pollen
grains and pre-empt the procedure of fertilization and fructification into coffee
beans. Mysore turns almost 75% of India’s Arabica crop, accounting for
60,000 metric ton of the country’s 2007-08 Arabica harvest of 82,000 tonne, less
than expected because of a heavy monsoon. Officials were looking at a 2008-09
national Arabica harvest of 1,00,000
tonne. However, there were
heavy morning time rainfalls on the first of the three-day blossoming time period in almost
all Arabica-growing pockets in Mysore and there were anticipations that it
would rain down the adjacent two years also. The lone economy saving grace was that some 30% of
Karnataka’s Arabica harvest had blossomed in February. Which still left 70%
at risk. A one-fourth of the remaining 70% (17.5% of the overall Mysore crop)
blossomed on Saturday. And one-half of the remaining 70% (35% of the overall
Karnataka crop) blossomed on Sunday, and the balance on
Monday. The Coffee Board
chairman added: “The feedback from our men of science and extension-staff is
that there was nightlong rainfall in some pockets which continued on Lord'S Day morning. Fortunately, the rainfalls stopped by 9 am and there was bright sunlight for long
enough for the buds to flower without the pollen grains being washed away. And
Monday morning time was a comparatively rain-free day. There have been no studies of
rain on blossoming years in the Arabica-growing areas of Tamil Nadu. Neither
there have been studies of rainfall on the blossoming years in India’s
Robusta-growing areas, barring Nelliampathy (in Kerala’s Palghat district)
where 1,000 metric ton could be lost. The overall impact for the 2008-09 harvest is far
less serious than initially apprehended, especially for
Arabica.”

Hedge funds' exit hits coffee prices

BANGALORE:
Is the cupper of cheer heading towards a microscope slide after having enjoyed price
increase for a couple of
years? The new pricing trouble
stems from two factors: The issue of respective big hedgerow finances from international
coffee hereafters contracts and the fearfulness of a oversupply owed to a bumper java harvest in
Brazil. The Brazilian harvest is expected to lift by about 10 million bags â€"
to about 53 million bags (of 50 kilogram each) â€" and is expected to hit the
market in
September-December. With
derivatives, equities and share marketplaces slumping, planetary hedgerow finances have
increasingly establish trade goodss like gold, java and India rubber as good fund-parking
spaces. They put heavily into trade goodss hereafters contracts and issue when
prices peak. That’s what happened in the first hebdomad of March and that in
turn started sending the java prices
down. According to United
Planters’ Association of South Republic Of India (Upasi) sources, the terms of
arabica and robusta touched a 10-year and 30-year high respectively on February
28. Arabica was traded at 167 cents a lb on that twenty-four hours before it slipped to 148
cents on March 3 while terms of robusta per metric ton drop from $2,750 to $2,507. On an average, the issue of
hedge finances resulted in a terms diminution of 20 cents per lb of arabica and a
drop of around $300 per metric ton of robusta, traded on the New House Of York and London
International Futures Exchange
respectively. Coffee is the
second biggest traded trade goods in the human race in footing of value and volume, after
petroleum. Paper trading of java have always oversize the physical trading of
it. "A series of investors
ranging from large-scale hedge funds, java finances and angel finances put in
paper coffees. When terms are up these investors begin cashing out and start
scouting for other parking options. Coffee is a scrip that tin be actively
traded. Prices are subject to sentiments, motions of other commodities,
competition, basics and kinetics that are completely different from that
of stock markets," said sphere expert Harish Bijoor.