Brazil Nutela Natural

Product Description

Fernando is a member of APROD, a cooperative which consists of a group of smallholder farmers who live around the city of Divinolandia. This group stands out in the region for being one of the few smallholder organizations producing great-tasting speciality coffees that are the result of strict quality control and traceability standards. The entire region is very influenced by coffee as most of the population has Italian origins. Italians were most responsible for the growth of coffee culture in Brazil. The coop also has 85% of their members certified Fairtrade, which helped them increase their focus in the use of agroforestry management for all members. It combines agricultural and forestry technologies to create more diverse, productive, profitable, healthy, and sustainable land-use system.

Origin | Brazil
Region | Mogiana
Producer | Fernando Carvalho
Farm | Sitio Bela Vista
Bags | 60kg/Grainpro
Screen | 16 up
Processing | Natural
Altitude | 1,200-1,300 mtasl
Variety | Red Catuai

This is our 3rd offering from Brazil , below is a little insight into the productivity from Brazil from the guys at Kamba who we we source the coffee through ( edited a little as it very long ! )

The 2020/21 Brazil harvest has been the most productive in history. The three factors to effect / influence quality and yield in Brazil: the biennial crop cycle, weather, and farm management. The Brazilian coffee harvest is notorious for its relatively severe ‘on/off’ cycle and the basic biology is simple to follow. In a high productivity year, the coffee tree will expend a huge amount of its’ energy on development and yield. As a result, there is less energy available for new productive tissue to sustain the same level of productivity in the subsequent year. In general, the crop cycle experiences consistent annual peaks and troughs according to this model. However, extremities in weather can occasionally disrupt or exaggerate this cycle. Looking back to the years 2000 – 2002 is a good example of this. The predicted ‘off-year’ in 1999/2000 happened as expected. Though in 2000/01, instead of the predicted high productivity, the new crop was affected by frost resulting in another year of low yield. This pent-up energy and productive tissue led to a bumper crop in 2001/02 and encouraged a pronounced biennial production cycle across Brazil. The severity of this cycle changes year on year with conditions. As we look forward to the 2021/22 Brazil harvest following the record-breaking crop that has just passed, it seems that the weather and biennial crop cycle will this time match up. As well as being an ‘off-year’, coffee trees have been severely affected by a drought during the flowering season. This led to many flowers being aborted. When coupled with the lack of productive tissue following the record-breaking harvest of 2020/21, it is no surprise that traders are predicting a productivity reduction of up to 30%.

Weather…..

We spoke with producer and trader, Mauricio Coelho, about the impact he predicts across his and his wife’s farms: “The lack of rain throughout the 2020/21 harvest period combined with the high productivity caused the trees to be weakened by the end of the season. It is expected that at the end of a harvest period, starting in September, strong rains should soften and recover the trees. However, it happened that the rains came in very low volumes and in a very uneven way this time. And above all, very late… Therefore, I particularly believe in a very sharp biennial cycle between 2020/21 and 2021/22 – we will feel a very large drop in production”.

Pruning…..

Talking about the pruning strategy on his land in 2021 given the recent weather conditions, Mauricio states that “pruning is part of every production plan and was already the path to be taken. This year, it happens that because of the lack of rain it was necessary to take a more drastic attitude. That is, increase the area with various types of pruning according to the need for each plot. Some areas we only prune the pointer, others the pointer and the lateral branches (skeleton). Across all the land, we are talking about ~ 50% of the area, against a natural number of 20% to 35% if the rain came within its normal range”. As technological advancements and agricultural understanding

The biennial crop cycle can be managed to an extent. The specialty industry has utilised active crop management to mitigate huge disparities in productivity for many years. Different agronomists recommend different techniques depending on a multitude of variables, yet the theory is consistent. Farms should be divided into different sections and strategically pruned according to expected yield and weather conditions. This way, loss of revenue or productivity due to periods of regrowth is reduced and a longer-term management strategy can work alongside other factors rather than against them. Increasingly, producers and farmers across the quality spectrum are focusing more on active crop management improves, this science will only become more precise and start to mitigate the impacts of the biennial crop cycle even further.