In push to raise coffee output, Colombia's south may hold key

Colombia’s isolated south could be crucial to the country’s push to expand coffee production by nearly 30 percent despite low global prices, its growers federation says, as farmers seek to ramp up productivity amid security improvements.

Output in Colombia, the world’s top grower of washed arabica, has hovered around 14 million 60-kg bags for four years as farmers battled extreme weather and low international prices, but the federation and the government have kept a medium-term 18 million bag goal.

To reach the target, the federation is preaching a gospel of productivity: touting tree renovation - which helped boost yields 30 percent in the last decade - and fertilization as a way to raise incomes without more land.

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