Five institutional forecasters have published sharply divergent estimates for Brazil’s 2026/27 coffee crop — the world’s largest — with projections ranging from 66.2 million to 75.9 million 60-kilogram bags, a gap of nearly 10 million bags that has already pushed futures prices to one-week lows and left global buyers uncertain about the scale of the coming supply surge.
The widest spread sits between Brazil’s official national crop agency, Conab, which projects output at 66.2 million bags for the season beginning July 2026, and Marex Group and Hedgepoint Global Markets, which forecast 75.9 million and 75.8 million bags respectively, according to Riotimesonline. StoneX sits at 75.3 million bags, representing a 20.8% increase over the prior season. The most recent estimate comes from the Coffee Trading Academy (CTA), which surveyed 758 farmers across all of Brazil’s producing regions and arrived at 71.4 million bags — an 11.5% increase year-on-year — as reported by Reuters on April 29, 2026.
The CTA’s farmer-level survey breaks the total into 47.9 million bags of Arabica, up 13.5% year-on-year, and 23.5 million bags of Robusta, up 7.6%, according to Reuters. The same survey found that total coffee acreage expanded 2.97% year-on-year, with Arabica plantings up 2.7% and Robusta up 3.6%. Fertilizer application rose 5.4% from the prior season, and 63.5% of the 758 farmers surveyed said off-season rainfall had a major positive impact on their crop, Reuters reported.
The CTA’s current 71.4 million-bag figure sits between two of its own earlier estimates: a July 2025 projection of 73.7 million bags and a November 2025 survey result of 69 million bags, according to Reuters.
The forecast divergence carries direct implications for global coffee markets. Barchart reported on April 30 that coffee prices fell to one-week lows as expectations of a larger Brazilian crop grew, with Vietnam’s strong Robusta exports and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — adding freight, insurance, and fuel cost pressure — cited as additional factors weighing on the market. StoneX projects global coffee production at 182.5 million bags against consumption of 172.5 million bags, implying a surplus of approximately 10 million bags for 2026, driven by Brazil’s larger harvest and Vietnam’s output.
On the futures market, the ICE Arabica July contract closed unchanged at 290.70 cents per pound on April 30, while ICE Robusta fell 1.1% to $3,442 per tonne, according to Comunicaffe. Certified Arabica stocks on the ICE exchange hit a two-month low of 494,508 bags on the same date, Comunicaffe reported. Riotimesonline noted that Brazil’s green-coffee exports fell 27% year-on-year to 2.3 million bags in 2026, with growers reported to be retaining beans in anticipation of better prices — a dynamic that has created tightness in the physical market despite the projected abundance of the coming harvest.
A stronger Brazilian real has also raised the landed cost of coffee for international importers, according to Riotimesonline. Rabobank, as cited by Riotimesonline, expects Arabica futures to settle in the range of $2.50 to $3.00 per pound by late 2026, with contango in the futures curve unlikely before December 2026. Brazil’s official harvest for the 2026/27 season is scheduled to begin in July 2026, according to Reuters.
