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Tegucigalpa – With 39 days until the start of the 2024-2025 harvest, the country’s coffee industry is still not ready to comply with EU non-deforestation regulations that are due to expire in December 2024.
– The 2023-2024 coffee harvest will not meet forecasts due to multiple challenges
Coffee grower and industry leader Fredy Pastrana has expressed concern about upcoming EU regulations banning deforestation, which affect the purchase of raw materials including coffee.
Pastrana explained to us that this regulation, which will come into force on December 30, 2024, requires the georeferencing of production units and requires them to comply with local Honduran laws. Digital processes.
Pastrana criticized the Honduran authorities for their lack of effective action to comply with these requirements and warned that if these 3.5 million quintals of coffee are not exported to the EU, the internal market will be saturated, which will lead to a sharp drop in coffee prices and a rise in prices, which will seriously affect producers.
In this sense, Pastrana called on the EU to consider extending the application period of the regulation to 12 to 24 months to allow Honduras to be properly organized.
However, he warned that if the extension does not materialize, more than 120,000 coffee-growing families will be affected and the country could lose about $900 million worth of coffee export revenue. This in turn would put downward pressure on prices in the domestic market, hurting the interests of thousands of small and medium-sized coffee growers.
Low yield
On the other hand, Freddy Pastrana warned that the 2023-2024 coffee harvest will not meet the forecasts drawn up by the Honduran Coffee Institute (IHCAFE) or the government. Pastrana said that the 6.5 million quintals estimated by IHCAFE is unlikely to be achieved, let alone the 8 million quintals projected by the government. Instead, production is expected to be between 5.5 and 5.8 million quintals.
The coffee grower pointed out that there are many factors contributing to the decline in production, including climate change, labor shortages, unresolved credit issues and the lack of reliable institutional policies to guarantee fair prices in domestic and external markets.
Lack of motivation among producers has led to a sharp drop in production, from 10 million quintals in 2017 to a much lower estimate for the current harvest, which is still about 39 days away.pound
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