Brazil's coffee harvest is expected to grow 4.6% in 24/25, says Itaú BBA

SÃO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil's coffee harvest in the 2024/25 season, which begins in the coming months, was estimated this Friday at 69.4 million 60 kg bags, an increase of 4.6% in comparison with the previous season, following an improvement in the climate in the Arabica grain production region, according to a report from Itaú BBA. The investment bank also noted that, despite the recovery in the harvest compared to recent years, the harvest will still be slightly below the record recorded in 2020/21, when it totaled 69.9 million bags. "After a complicated post-flowering period in Brazil's coffee belts, with little rain and a lot of heat, especially in the Cerrado of Minas Gerais, the condition of crops improved reasonably, with the return of rain from the second half of December and good volumes in January ", said Itaú BBA. According to the bank's Agro Consulting report, the south of Minas Gerais, the main producing region, "where the rains arrived a little earlier than in the ...