Brazilian coffee farms are turning to costly irrigation

In some places in the heart of Brazil’s traditional coffee growing region in the state of Minas Gerais, the water table has fallen so much that supplying water to irrigated farms has become very difficult.

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Drought hit coffee farmers in Brazil hard last year, driving up prices as one area of global prices to record highs. But Rodrigo Brandani is expecting a bumper harvest. Brandani’s giant plantation on the savanna of Brazil’s northeastern state of Bahia looks very different to the mountainous farms more typical of Latin America. As he inspects rows of plants laden with green coffee cherries, a long irrigation arm crosses overhead nearby. It traces a wide circle above the trees from a central pivot, like the hand of a clock. “This is looking very good,” said Brandani, the lead manager at the Jaha farm, which has 900 hectares (2,224 acres) of irrigated coffee fields - more than 200 times bigger than the average coffee farm in Brazil - this kind of industrial-scale coffee farm is increasingly meeting a global coffee demand in Brazil - the world’s largest grower. Most farms in the western part of Bahia - a new frontier for coffee growing in Brazil - are now irrigated. Brandani expects to produce up to 80,000 (132,000 pounds) bags of coffee per hectare at that specific lot of the farm, double the average yield in Brazil. At current market prices, the farm is more than holding its own, ending in October, would be worth around $17 million.

Reuters spoke to more than 20 farmers, officials, agronomists, irrigation experts and coffee company executives to examine how rapid shifts in rainfall patterns due to climate change are transforming coffee farming. Coffee growing has typically depended on Brazil’s abundant spring and summer rains. Drought has cut into and only around 30% of coffee fields are irrigated, according to industry assessments. After last year’s disaster, that is changing. But irrigation can be costly, depending on the distance from a water source and the depth of the water table.