Colombia could recuperate historic coffee production levels in four years if special varieties are planted, said the country’s growers federation Friday, in financial publication Portafolio.
Fedecafe president Luis Genaro Muñoz said that if the country cultivates strains of roya fungus and excess humidity-resistant coffee, then 11 million 321lb bags of coffee could be produced per year.
“If Colombia continues at this pace, replanting a little more than 250,000 acres annually, we think that we will achieve change in the productive structure of the country and in four years, more or less, we will have 90% of the coffee plantations sown with regional varieties that are better adapted to climate change, to the excess of humidity,” said Muñoz.
In 2011, Colombia registered its lowest annual production in 36 years as a result of strong rains in coffee-producing areas, which began in 2009. This year Colombia has missed its annual coffee production target for the third time in a row.
Muñoz said that the initiative to replant crops with varieties resistant to climate change will begin to bear fruit in four years, adding that in 2011, 290,000 acres were replanted.
Colombia currently has 2.27 million acres of coffee cultivation and intends to increase this figure to 2.47 million acres in order for production to reach 17 bags of 321lb per year.