The Rain During Coffee Harvest
The annual coffee harvest period, in the case of El Salvador, is between November and February and March of the following year. It is a dry and cold season, ideal for picking coffee fruits, but all this can be variable because of rain.
As El Salvador witnessed the dramatic changes brought about by the rains, the coffee trees blossom as workers harvest, said Carlos Pola of Brisas Estate: "This is not uncommon in Colombia, where rainfall is more abundant, but it is as unusual in El Salvador as it is in June."
This is not only a strange weather phenomenon but also a cause for concern for many farmers, affecting not only the decline in incomes in the current year but also indirectly the harvest in the following year.
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Rainfall During The Harvest Period Represents Damage To Coffee
While rainfall is important for high coffee production and coffee growth, it is a negative threat to ripe coffee fruits, which are knocked to the ground and left behind for too long before fermentation begins.
On the other hand, the fruit left on the branch may be split by absorbing too much moisture too quickly, which will cause the flesh of the ripe fruit to be separated, which will result in a reduction in the weight of the fruit and the loss of the pectin layer, thereby reducing the quality of the finished coffee product and the cup score. Like the sugar loss of coffee.
When the coffee fruit is classified according to maturity at the activity of micro-batches of coffee, the ideal batch has the most ripening fruit, less ripening fruit, and pink fruit than raw fruit. If there is rain, we will harvest the pink fruit, because waiting until the fruit turns red will take a lot of risks.
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While harvesting the pink fruit will result in lower cup scores and purchase prices, waiting until the fruit turns red and harvests, farmers will be burdened with lower yields and lower quality double losses.
Challenges To The Handling Field
Rainfall can cause problems not only at the farm end but also at the plant where it is handled. For coffee that has just been harvested and treated, air humidity causes slightly less moisture, but it can have a serious impact on coffee that has been treated to the right range and has been bagged and exported. He said: "You'll need to dry them again, that is, second-time processing, which will cause quality to deteriorate.
Even freshly harvested and dried coffee on a scaffold can negatively affect rainfall. You need to use wood to separate different batches of coffee to avoid mixing and then cover with raw beans. But if the rain comes quickly and quickly, it will catch us off guard.
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If rapid and rapid rains cause great damage, even in sealed bags dedicated to combating rainwater and moisture, it is difficult to keep all bags closed until the effects of water and gas are significant, especially when there are large quantities of raw beans.
Rainfall is the peak of operation and the hardest time for a treatment plant.
Financial Impact Of Rainfall During Harvest Periods On Producers
Rainfall is particularly bad for sun or honey-treated coffee, and even worse for smallholder producers with short manpower, insufficient resources, and room for working capital.
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Such rains can lower the cup score, plus many buyers will only buy more than 84 points of items, and this is a big difference for farmers' incomes if they get dropped from boutiques to commercial beans because of rain.
Small farmers, in particular, are helpless to watch their coffee decline. Rafael said: "We have to call the factory and ask them to separate the wet batches and cover them with items. Then move the almost ready fruit to the greenhouse... smaller farmers just need to pick up all the fruit in the next phase. "
Effect Of Rain On The Next Year's Harvest
The next year's harvest period will be advanced to August.
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The phrase was heard several times in Salvadoran producing areas where rainfall occurred. Coffee flowers appear early on the shoots as a result of unanticipated heavy rains, but coffee flowers are associated with the development of the fruit, which usually ripens nine months after flowering, despite differences in variety and region.
This will lead to a high risk of low-quality and low-yield coffee harvests in the current year, with some lower-income farmers wishing to receive money early in the following year, after all, without cash on the farmers, wishing to have an income before livelihood difficulties.
However, because Salvadoran coffee participates in competition with coffee that usually occurs simultaneously (e.g. Peru, Brazil, Kenya), early harvests can affect supply and demand. Reduced demand and increased supply can lead to lower prices, so the month for farmers to tighten their belts may last longer.
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Often, early harvests may also result in the inability to find harvesting workers, as this is seasonal work. However, as coffee leaf rust hit coffee production and quality hard in 2012, resulting in a surplus of coffee harvesting, local producers estimate that 25 per cent more harvesting workers than actually needed.
But even a glimmer of hope hides the annoying reality that if the harvest period starts early, it may end early. Workers who usually wish to work until February or even March may lose their jobs by December. There will be a larger gap between 2017 and 2018 harvests, which also represents a possible increase in the months when farmers tighten their belts.
Does the boutique coffee industry turn a blind eye to the problem behind it?
Real buyers don't see these problems, they don't have a rainy season when they get to the farm, and they don't know what a little rain can do.
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Some coffee producers may prefer to work with local buyers rather than with boutique coffee buyers because the risk is less and if the rain results in a loss of quality, boutique coffee buyers may not buy them, but local buyers will still buy them.
There is no simple solution to the damage caused by rainfall during harvest periods, and the quality of coffee must be considered by the boutique coffee community without neglecting the livelihoods of producers and farm workers. We can ask ourselves what else can we do at the back end of the supply chain to stabilize the income of front-end characters, not only when the weather is good, but when the wind is raining and even when pests and diseases are destroying crops.
Farmers must, of course, diversify their sources of income, but they also need funds to support producers in purchasing equipment to maintain coffee dryness. Loans for future crops, etc. There is no way to completely solve the problem of rainfall during the harvest period. But in the face of unstable climatic conditions, we actually have a lot of ways to support producers, and that's not far from us.
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