In 2019 Ecuador received $ 77.8 million for coffee exports, the lowest since 2005, when they were $ 88.4 million, according to statistics from the National Association of Coffee Exporters of Ecuador (Anecafé).
Ecuadorian coffee falls dramatically in harvest and sale
In 2018, $ 81 million had been exported for 482,699 bags of 60 kilos. Although more bags were exported last year (506,266), that did not mean that more will be paid for the grain.
And in the last seven years the reduction is very drastic: 68% less in volume and 72% in foreign exchange income for the country.
The general exports of coffee, industrialized and in grain, were in 2012 of 1 570 000 bags and $ 274 million, and in 2019 the union reports a drop of 1 064 000 bags in volume of sale and a decrease of income of $ 196 million .
Pablo Pinargote, manager of Anecafé, attributes it to the weather, because there was a lot of drought at the time and in the flowering of coffee there was a lot of rain.
At the end of 2019, Vinicio Dávila, president of Anecafé, argued that in general the production of coffee plantations in the country is decreasing, with an average harvest of 5 quintals per hectare.
“In 2018 we managed to export just $ 80 million, when some years ago we exported close to $ 500 million (the highest export record in recent years was in 1994 with $ 411 million, according to Anecafé), the fall is drastic, the fall is brutal ”He commented.
On average in recent years Ecuador has produced about 250,000 bags of coffee, in 2019 it barely reached 200,000. To complete the export (reached half a million), Ecuador must import coffee to Vietnam and Brazil, although Pinargote expects that This year, 250,000 bags will be produced again.
“2019 was the worst year of exports of coffee beans, 24,000 bags were exported – the rest and mostly it was soluble – the figure had never been reached. The grain export has not finished dying thanks to the Golden Cup event, which promotes special coffee, ”says Pinargote, who argues that the Ecuadorian industry does not die because it is also imported.
