|
 Brazil's coffee crop this year is going to total 46 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee, representing growth of 27.5% over that of last year, or 9.9 million bags more. This is going to be the second largest crop ever recorded, after the 2002/3, which amounted to 48.48 million bags.
In 2007, 36 million bags were harvested and this year, coffee exports increased 2%, rising from 27.8 million bags in 2007 to 28.5 million bags this year. Production of Arabica coffee this year stood at 35.5 million bags, and 10.51 million bags of the Conilon variety were produced.
The leading coffee producer state, Minas Gerais, ends the year with an output of 23.58 million bags, followed by Espírito Santo, at 10.2 million bags, and São Paulo, at 4.4 million bags.
This year, productivity has increased, however the planted area decreased 0.3% in comparison with the previous crop. The figures were disclosed by the National Supply Company (Conab), an organ of the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture.
Overseas Promotion
To increase Brazilian coffee exports, the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil) and the Brazilian Coffee Industry Association (ABIC) are going to invest 24.084 million Brazilian reais (US$ 10.3 million) in activities to promote the Brazilian product abroad between 2008 and 2010. The new project is turned to countries that have high potential for coffee purchase.
Among the activities to be organized are Brazilian Gastronomic Weeks in renowned restaurants in South America, Asia and Europe, where typically Brazilian foods should be served, together with the sampling of Brazilian coffee.
Currently, the United States is the main market for the Brazilian product, responsible for 70% of coffee exports. The idea behind the project is to promote coffee in countries like Panama, Chile, Turkey, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Argentina, Chile, Portugal, Spain, France, Poland and Germany, among others.
The first country to receive a group or Brazilian chefs should be Chile, where the World Congress of the World Association of Chefs Societies should take place. Coffee should also be promoted by a team of coffee experts, the Brazilian Coffee Team, which should serve several kinds of drinks using the product, all to win the taste buds of new consumers.
According to the president of the Apex, Alessandro Teixeira, in a press statement disclosed by the organization, this is the moment to seed in the global market the image of Brazil as a producer and processor of excellent quality coffee.
According to figures supplied by the ABIC, Brazil is the main global producer of coffee, and in 2007 the country produced 33.4 million bags. Shipments totaled 28.1 million bags last year, placing the country in the position of main global exporter.
Apart from that, Brazil is the second main coffee consumer market, with 17 million bags consumed. This is not the first time that the Apex-Brasil and ABIC join forces to promote foreign sales of coffee.
In 2002, exports totaled US$ 4 million, with activities of both organizations, sales reached US$ 26 million in 2007, a total that has already been exceeded in the first 10 months of 2008, when roasted and ground coffee exports reached US$ 34 million.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.