Brazil's 2026/27 coffee harvest forecast hits 71.9 million bags, a potential record, but prices have fallen 28-46% from 2025 peaks

Summary

Brazil's 2026/27 coffee harvest is forecast to reach 71.9 million 60-kilogram bags, a 14.1% increase on the prior year and potentially the highest ever recorded by CONAB, the Brazilian agricultural supply company. The jump reflects the biennial high-cycle year for arabica trees and favourable growing conditions. Despite the production record, arabica farmgate prices in Brazil have fallen sharply: the April 2026 average of BRL 1,811.87 per 60-kg bag was 28% below April 2025, and robusta fell 46% year-on-year. Rabobank has raised its estimate of the global arabica surplus to 9.5 million bags for 2026/27. Brazilian growers are withholding beans from the physical market hoping for price recovery, creating short-term tightness in cash markets even as futures point to eventual oversupply. A separate pressure comes from the Strait of Hormuz closure, which has raised freight and insurance costs on all commodity trade routes, compressing grower margins further.

The split

Brazilian agricultural media and farmer organisations focused on the farmgate price collapse as the story, framing the record harvest as a "value trap" in which growers produce more but earn less. International commodity and trade press, based mostly in the United States, Netherlands and Australia, led with the surplus signal and its likely impact on global retail coffee prices through 2027. Vietnamese and Indonesian coffee media, covering two of the other major producers, noted that their own robusta output would compound the Brazilian arabica surplus rather than offset it. Consumer-country media in Europe and Japan gave the supply-side story limited coverage.

By the numbers

• 71.9 million bags, Brazil's 2026/27 coffee production forecast (60-kg bags)
• 14.1%, year-on-year increase in Brazilian output
• BRL 1,811.87, average arabica farmgate price per bag in April 2026
• -28%, arabica price change versus April 2025
• -46%, robusta price change versus April 2025 in Brazil
• 9.5 million bags, Rabobank's 2026/27 global arabica surplus estimate
• 278.40 USD/lb, ICE arabica futures price on July 1, 2026

Why it matters

Coffee is a US$460 billion annual consumer market and a primary income source for roughly 125 million smallholder farmers across Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia. A 28-46% farmgate price decline on top of rising input and freight costs threatens household incomes at the farm level even when port-level export volumes and consumer retail prices do not immediately reflect the shift. The withholding strategy by larger Brazilian producers buys time but cannot absorb a 9.5-million-bag structural surplus indefinitely.

What to watch

• Whether Rabobank's surplus estimate is revised higher or lower as the Brazil harvest progresses through Q3 2026.
• USDA's monthly WASDE coffee update, which incorporates harvest quality as well as quantity.
• Whether grower withholding in Brazil causes a physical-market squeeze in futures delivery months.
• The impact of the Strait of Hormuz closure on maritime freight rates for coffee exports from Brazil and Vietnam.