Summer in the Southeast could impact coffee production

The summer of 2025 in Southeast Brazil will be marked by a climate scenario that could significantly affect the production of Arabica and Conilon coffee, essential crops for agribusiness. Coffee production plays a central role in the national economy and was recently identified as one of the main drivers of inflation in 2024. Adverse weather and its impacts on production could contribute to maintaining pressure on prices in the domestic market, directly affecting consumers.

According to AtmosMarine, a company specializing in meteorology and oceanography, the La Niña phenomenon has officially established itself, albeit with weak intensity, with the Niño 3.4 index reaching -0.5 and expected to remain until March or April. However, the influence of the phenomenon should be limited, since the climate pattern was established late. Even so, the combination of negative temperature anomalies and positive precipitation anomalies, especially due to the action of the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (ZCAS), may have a direct impact on coffee farming.

The SACZ, a typical Brazilian summer system, transports large volumes of moisture from the Amazon toward the Southeast, generating cloudiness and persistent rain for several days. This excess precipitation, combined with milder temperatures, creates an environment conducive to the emergence of fungal diseases, such as coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix) and phoma leaf spot, which thrive in high humidity conditions.

"In addition to the phytosanitary risk, saturated soils can compromise the root system of plants, reducing the absorption of nutrients and causing yellowing of leaves, directly impacting crop productivity. Excessive rainfall can also hinder essential management practices, such as the application of pesticides, in addition to increasing the risk of erosion, especially in mountainous areas," says Luiz do Carmo, meteorologist at AtmosMarine.

According to the expert, on the other hand, milder temperatures can have a positive effect by favoring slower vegetative development, which contributes to more uniform maturation of the beans, a desirable characteristic for coffee quality.