Coffee Is Down 20% This Year as Supply Outruns Demand for the First Time in Four Years

Brazil's exports are up 40% year on year, tipping the global market into surplus. For a country that sells arabica for foreign exchange, the direction of that benchmark is the number that matters.

Coffee prices have fallen about 20% this year, with global supply exceeding demand for the first time in four years.

Brazil, the world's largest producer, is behind the surplus. Its exports are up 40% on a year earlier — enough on its own to move a market that had spent the previous three years short.

Why an Ethiopian reader should care

Ethiopia is one of the world's major arabica origins, and coffee is among the country's largest sources of export earnings. A price fall of this size does not pass through one-for-one to an Ethiopian exporter — origin differentials, quality premiums and contract timing all sit between the benchmark and a washed-station cheque — but the direction sets the ceiling.

It also lands in a period when the birr's value against the dollar has made export receipts a live question for policymakers as much as for traders.

Open

The item does not specify which benchmark fell 20%, whether the figure refers to arabica or robusta, or over what window "this year" is measured. It gives no differential for East African origins, which is where the number would have to land before it means anything concrete for an Ethiopian producer.

Sources: Venture Capital, 20 September 2026