You don't have permission to access the page you requested What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed 09-20-2024IMPACT Almeida and other farmers have started grappling with the nation’s worst drought in more than seven decades and above-average temperatures An aerial view of a coffee plantation consumed by wildfires in a rural area of Caconde BY Associated Press Almeida expected to harvest 120 sacks of coffee beans this harvest season the 2025 crop is already affected,” he told The Associated Press pointing to a part of his plantation where flower buds died before blooming it’s already compromised.”Brazil’s harvest season that ends this month was virtually flat from last year but the ongoing drought is already complicating the start of the 2025/2026 season according to a report Monday by the Center for Advanced Studies on Applied Economics at the University of Sao Paulo’s agribusiness school.At the same time the world’s second-biggest coffee producer Potential supply shortages in both countries have started driving up global coffee prices according to the report.The market is closely monitoring how Brazilian coffee plants endure these adverse climate conditions fail to turn into cherries or produce lower-quality beans who coordinates the master’s program in agribusiness at the Getulio Vargas Foundation a university in Sao Paulo.“It could result in a smaller coffee harvest,” Serigati said “Since the market tends to anticipate these movements we’ve already seen the price of arabica coffee in New York and robusta (coffee) in Europe trading at higher levels.”Coffee prices haven’t reached the record highs the world saw in the late 1970s after a severe frost wiped out 70% of Brazil’s coffee plants But they have been soaring in recent years.In August the International Coffee Organization’s Composite Indicator Price — which combines the price of several types of green coffee beans — averaged $2.38 per pound up nearly 55% from the same month a year ago.In part prices are rising because of higher demand frost and fire have damaged as much as one-fifth of arabica coffee producers’ growing areas in Brazil a senior economist for food and beverage at Colorado-based CoBank.“It’s not looking like it will get that much better in the near term They will need consistent rainfall to recover,” he said manmade wildfires across Brazil have lately been ravaging protected areas and farms One of them ripped through Caconde last week.Almeida who is also a math teacher at a local public school helped calculate the damage for a regional association he estimates the blazes affected 519 hectares (1,282 acres) 30% pasture and 15% coffee plantations.On Almeida’s own land The coffee he sells to a local cooperative is his livelihood and also pays for his son’s medical treatment.For smallholders seeing years of cultivation reduced to ash is tough to reckon with Martins ran through fire to save his bee boxes he is finding the strength to continue forward.“Faith is a boat that helps us navigate life,” he said The final deadline for Fast Company’s Brands That Matter Awards is Friday, May 30, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today. Fast Company & Inc © 2025 Mansueto Ventures Fastcompany.com adheres to NewsGuard’s nine standards of credibility and transparency. Learn More Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information A farmer cuts down coffee plants destroyed by frost during extremely low temperatures near Caconde 2022 at 7:00 AM EDTBookmarkSaveLock This article is for subscribers only.Brazil’s coffee growers are seeing worrisome signs that trees debilitated by more than two years of frost and drought will need more than better weather to replenish dwindling bean stockpiles While September rains helped trees blossom for the start of the new harvest season farmers are concerned by what they’ve seen so far while others produced unusually shaped flowers Fruits are falling to the ground before they get a chance to grow Brazil is on the edge of power rationing and major blackouts and will need to rely heavily on importing supplies from Uruguay and Argentina through next month until the rainy season starts and dams are replenished with countries like Chile also hoping to rely on Argentine gas to make it through a hydro crunch of their own.