El Niño phenomenon may cause a loss of 40% in Brazilian Pepper output in 2010

Belem do Pará, the capital city of the state of Pará in Brazil, is the brunt of several jokes due its climate.
One of these claims that business or social meetings used to be arranged for "before the rain" or "after the rain" in light of the regularity of downpours in the region.

Well, that was once upon a time...

In reality, the state of Pará (the largest pepper production area in Brazil), has only 2 seasons throughout the year. Dissected by the Equator, its summer extends from July to November and winter from December to June. Temperatures are almost the same all year (around 30°C) and approximately 2 degrees lower during the "winter". The main difference is rain and moisture. During the winter season it rains heavily all day. During the summer months, there is only one heavy shower every day and sunshine and dry weather for the rest of the day.  A climatic paradise for pepper.

However, this year everything has changed. Participants at the IPC Congress early December last year, spent 10 days in Belem without any rain. And, this was the case almost until January. The reason is said to be the "El Niño". The fact is that weather delayed pepper development and blossom.

Furthermore, the situation is even worse in the north of the state of Espirito Santo, which is the second most important pepper production area. More than 60 days without rains and uncommon high temperatures not only hit Peppertrees but also Pink Pepper and even Coffee production, incurring significant losses. Apparently, Pink Pepper will be scarce with almost 90% of the production lost. Coffee losses are estimated from 15% to 20%. Preliminary estimates for Black Pepper are a possible crop of no more than 3,000 tons in June /July against 10,000 tons last year.

We´ve been talking to several area producers and exporters and they are all highly disappointed. The only plantations showing slightly better resistance are those with irrigation, but even there the strong heat and sunshine significantly weakened the plantation.

By next week, we should have a better picture of the production in the state of Pará, but for the moment the Brazilian 2010 production estimate has fallen to a possible 25,000 tons against last year’s 40,000 tons.

Below a chart of rainfall in 2010 (January/February/March) where green columns show this year´s actual rainfalls and the line shows the regular rainfalls average between 1961-1990

PEPPERTRADE EDITOR