Scheduling medical checkups for the staff, preparing the housing modules to maintain social distance and adapting the logistics of transporting people are challenges that the sugar mills will face during the 2020-2021 harvest.
The sugar cane harvest that is about to begin represents a source of employment for thousands of people in the region and in this context of the propagation of covid-19, the companies will have to face multiple challenges to get the harvest going.
High production costs, climate effects and difficulties in accessing financing are making things complicated for the coffee sector, whose competitiveness continues to decline.
The coffee growers union states that the costs of production of the grain in the country has been increasing, currently ranging between $3 and $3.5 per pound.At the same time, international prices have been declining in recent months, which has added to the negative effect of the weather, auguring a complex panorama for the 2017/18 harvest.
Because of incidences of rust, coffee production in the 2015-2016 harvest was only 3.9 million hundredweight, equivalent to $700 million in foreign exchange.
The presence of rust in more than half of coffee plantations, lack of funding to renovate plantations and low international grain prices resulted in a reduction in production and in export values, for the second consecutive cycle.
The end of hostilities between the government and guerrillas will enable the cultivation of grain in regions which have been hitherto untapped, which could increase the 2020 harvest to 20 million bags.
The Minister of Finance in Colombia, Mauricio Cardenas said in an article on Swissinfo.ch that"... the domestic industry" isalreadyon the rise , "mainly due to an increase in productivity per hectare in recent years, and he said that in 2016 it is expected to be located at between 14.5 million and 15 million bags, up from the 14.2 million recorded last year. "
The inability to export the fruit to Costa Rica comes on top of the negative effects of the drought, which has resulted in a 30% drop in the production of the first crop.
Because of the lack of rain, the result of the first harvest was 30% lower than that of the same period last year. Producers hope that the outcome of the second harvest, scheduled to start in November and end in January and February, will yield better results and that the product can be placed in alternative markets to Costa Rica.
In 2014 imports of food preparations totalled $115 million, which is an increase of 22% compared to 2013.
Within this category, imports of composite preparations for the beverage industry recorded an increase of $18 million between 2014 and 2013, making a total of $53 million last year.In turn, imports of bread improvers recorded increase of 88% between the two years, going from $2 million in 2013 to $4 million in 2014.
With 30 days left until the end of the 2013/2014 harvest, sales from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Costa Rica are lower than in the previous crop by 56%, 12%, 15% and 10%, respectively.
South American producers in Colombia and Peru were the only ones who achieved positive results in sales of the current crop, with growth in the harvest in respect to 2012/2013 of 22% and 5.5%, respectively.
Guatemala has reported a productivity of 101.68 tons of sugarcane per hectare, followed by Honduras and El Salvador, reaching levels of 93.47 and 89.94, respectively.
During the harvest from November 2012 - June 2013, Guatemala achieved a productivity of 10.57 tonnes of sugar per hectare (TSH), higher than that achieved by producers neighbors El Salvador and Honduras which achieved TSH of 10.55 and 10,03, respectively.
Private coffee producers accounted for 15.2 million sacks on March 31st, the highest number in the last seven years.
The increase in inventories is the result of the grain harvest collected by farmers after the severe drought that hit the country in recent months, raising concerns about the supply of coffee from the world's largest producer.
"...Private producers in Brazil had 15.2 million bags of coffee in inventories as of March 31, up 9.2% from the 13.9 million bags in the same period last year, the government agency Conab said in a report published online this week. "
60% of coffee plantations were renewed between early 2009 and June 2014, reducing the average age of plantations from 12 to 7 years.
The negative effects of the climate phenomenon La Niña and the rust blight in Colombian coffee plantations between 2009 and 2012 led the industry to implement a policy of conversion of plantations, a process that was completed in June 2014 with the renovation of 575 thousand hectares of coffee nationwide.
The largest global coffee marketers may increase final prices to consumer in the medium term if the wholesale price keeps going up.
Projections are that the price of coffee will continue the trend seen in the last few months at least until the end of the year due to the impact of climate on crops in the leading coffee producing country in the world, Brazil .
Volcafé, one of the largest traders in the world, has announced that its production will be 10% lower than the previous season, due to the effects of drought in Brazil.
After fluctuating for 4 weeks, the price of contracts with terms of one month for the arabica variety rose to $215 on April 23rd.
Bloomberg reports that "the global harvest, including the variety of robusta beans, will be 11 million bags short of meeting global demand, estimates Volcafe. That means a global deficit which is equivalent to the production of Colombia, the second largest supplier of arabica in the world. ".
Estimates are that this year they will harvest 35 million quintals of corn and 6 million quintals of beans.
This year in 2013, the corn harvest was 33 million quintals and 5 million quintals of beans, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food (MAGA).
The deputy minister of the Maga, Carlos Anzueto, said that this record has been achieved because of the distribution of rainfall, automation and the presence of agricultural extension.
Two new plagues have damaged 50% of the current crop of potatoes in Guatemala causing prices to double, jumping from $15 to $30 per quintal.
The fleahopper and leaf miner pests, are currently affecting 50% of the potato crop in Guatemala. According to the Agriculture Minister Elmer Lopez the virus known as leafroller, has caused the contamination of 3000 of the 6000 acres that were expected this season.
Losses caused by the rust disease in Honduras amount to 1.8 million bags, 650,000 quintals in Guatemala, 600,000 in Nicaragua, 400,000 in El Salvador, 200,000 in Costa Rica and 60,000 in Panama.
Those are the estimates of the Central American Organization of Coffee Exporters (ORCECA), who was unwilling to speculate on how much income the region would not receive because of declining exports.