Poor crop weather in Florida and the Midwest may lead to higher prices.

Two feet of rain the past week has left many potato fields in Northeast Florida flooded, which will cause rot and harvest delays. Yes most potatoes are produced in the states of Idaho, North Dakota, Main and Washington. However, a third of the winter-spring production of potatoes in the U.S. comes from Florida. A wide variety are grown there3 from the large traditional white to the fancy gourmet type. Flagler County, one of the key potato producing counties in Florida has recorded 28 inches of rain the past week with more in the forecast.

State agriculture officials are estimating potato crop loses in Florida of $45 million. This could be enough to influence the spring market and translate to higher prices at the store and restaurant in he coming weeks until the summer crop from Northern states can take over.

January trough June is potato-growing season in Florida and the bulk of harvest comes in May and June.   Meanwhile the Florida Department of Citrus expects orange production for the 2009-10 season to be lower, due in part to weather problems past and forecast.  The usually dry month of May in Florida has turned wet after drought that dates back to 2007 in parts of the citrus region.  Some areas were running 50 to 75% below normal rainfall. Little rain during the ripening stage can lead to stress and fruit loss and some citrus trees were wilting prior to recent rain.

In some areas downpours are wiping out the rain deficit but comes to late for the 2008-09 crop, but it could help the 2009-10 crop. Most Florida orange groves are harvested in the dry season from mid-November through mid-February.

The U.S. is one of the biggest producers of oranges and orange juice in the world second only to Brazil. The Sunshine State leads in production in this country. An active tropical rain season and a forecast wetter than normal winter could spell problems for the 2009-20010 Florida citrus crops and may result in higher orange juice prices at the grocery store down the line.

Meanwhile wet spring weather and a cool and wet summer forecast threatens the corn crop in the Midwest. At the very least a bumper crop of corn is less likely as some fields go unplanted and others may be planted too late for the crop to mature. Also if the corn plant is sown too late it peaks in the hot dry summer months resulting in smaller or less than ideal grain size. Wet fields may allow a larger percentage of fields to go unsown or the planting delays of spring can prevent some farmers from planting a second crop of the same or different variety. Also late maturing crops are more susceptible to an early frost, which long-range forecasts indicate are possible this autumn. The forecast for the rest of spring and summer also favors more disease-related problems.

Rainfall in May in Illinois is 1-3 inches above average and plenty more is in the forecast through early June.  Corn yields begin dropping 2-3 bushels per acre (2%) each day beyond May 15th and decline at faster rates after the 20th. Rainfall in Illinois and Indiana has been above normal since at least March 1st.  Wet soil conditions also prevail in Missouri and Arkansas. It takes up to 6 days without rain for fields to dry enough for farm equipment. Illinois and Indiana are the nations second and 5th largest corn-producing states respectively, and planting is 3-5 weeks behind normal. Nationwide the corn crop is more than a week behind the 5-year average pace.  If current trends continue corn and corn-related product prices will rise in the months ahead.

The sun correlates very strongly positively with coffee production and negatively with coffee prices.

This is because as we have seen an active sun outputs a little more energy, more ultraviolet, which cause warming in the atmosphere through ozone chemistry, and through the diffusion of galactic cosmic rays that normally cause, increased low clouds through ion-mediated nucleation. Fewer cosmic rays mean fewer clouds, more sun. The opposite happens when the sun is quiet as it has been the last few years.

During solar minimum there tends to be unusually wet and cloudy conditions in Columbia, Central America, the coffee regions of central and northeast Brazil and an erratic monsoon in Southeast Asia and India.

 
El Salvador's 2008-09 coffee production was 8.7% lower at 1.463 million bags for Oct. 1 to March 31, the Salvadoran Coffee Council. Honduran coffee exports for the 2008-09 seasons through April 15 were down 15% from the year-ago period to 1.521 million bags, the Honduran Coffee Institute. The 2008-09 harvest is behind last year's pace due to adverse weather that delayed picking. Furthermore, the program to replace old trees currently being implemented in Colombia and the reduction in fertilizer use as a result of high prices have contributed to lower production of Colombian washed Arabicas.

The Indian and Vietnam (world's second largest coffee producers - mainly robustas) crops also were a disappointment.

2009/10 will be affected by lower production in Brazil, which will be in the off-year in its biennial production cycle. In accordance with the Arabica production cycle in Brazil, a smaller crop in the next follows an abundant crop in one year. For crop year 2009/10, the Brazilian authorities have forecast a total crop of between 36.9 and 38.8 million bags, down 25 from 45,992 million bags this past year.

 

Much if the formerly held reserves of coffees by individual producing nations has been reduced to take advantage of improved prices and warehouse supplies are down.

According to the International Coffee Organization (ICO), total production for crop year 2008/09, which is affected by the situation in Colombia, Central America and Vietnam, is estimated at around 127 million bags. While it is still too early to forecast world production for crop year 2009/10, it is expected that there will be a significant decrease in supply in relation to current levels of demand.

World consumption in calendar year 2008 is estimated at 128 million bags, compared to 126.5 million bags in 2007. As yet there is no indication of any significant impact of the world economic crisis on consumption. However, changes in the behavior of consumers, particularly in the emerging markets of Eastern Europe, are likely.

MT. REDOUBT
 
High latitude volcanoes historically have historically led to a weakening of the Asian /Indian wet monsoon. This may help explain the erratic monsoon last year (with Kasatochi). Mt. Redoubt may do the same this year . This could again affect India and Vietnam.