Earthquake affects Colombian coffee exports and threatens international shipments

Deaths in earthquake in Colombia exceed 250; thousands remain injured and homeless The 7.4 magnitude earthquake that hit Colombia on Monday (10) interrupted part of the country's coffee export logistics and brought new concerns to the international market for one of the most consumed drinks in the world. Colombia is the third largest coffee producer in the world, behind only Brazil and Vietnam, and plays an important role in supplying washed Arabica coffee, a variety valued by large international buyers. The country also exports most of its production. LIVE: Follow the latest updates on the earthquake in Colombia They produced around 14.8 million 60 kg bags in the 2024/25 harvest and exported approximately 13 million bags in 2025. ? Colombia has a long tradition in coffee production, which has become part of the country's identity and even earned producers the nickname “cafeteros”. For decades, the country maintained a kind of rivalry in the market with Brazil to find out who has the "best coffee". While the Colombians specialized in higher quality and added value coffees, Brazil consolidated itself through scale and variety, producing both arabica and conilon. The impact of the earthquake, therefore, is not limited to the regions affected by the disaster. Blockages and landslides on roads that connect the interior of the country to the port of Buenaventura, in the Pacific, make it difficult for Colombian coffee to travel abroad and could cause delays in deliveries if the situation continues. Images show destruction in the Colombian rural area AgroLatam.com ?? The situation worries the international market because in addition to Colombia being one of the main coffee producers in the world, the situation is compounded by low global stocks and concern about the effects of the El Niño phenomenon on world production. This concern already appears in international prices. On Tuesday (11), the Arabica coffee contract for September rose 1.04% and closed at around US$3.34 per pound. The rise came amid concerns about global supply, including the possible impacts of the earthquake on Colombia's coffee exports. ? Why does the New York Stock Exchange matter? Coffee is a commodity, a raw material traded on the international market. The New York Stock Exchange is one of the main references for the price of Arabica coffee. The quotation serves as a parameter for negotiations between producers, exporters and buyers. Therefore, rises or falls can influence the cost of coffee in different countries. The price in the supermarket, however, also depends on exchange rates, taxes and other costs. The dimension of the problem appears precisely in the importance of Buenaventura for the chain. In an interview with the local newspaper El Colombiano, the president of the National Association of Coffee Exporters (Asoexport), Gustavo Gómez stated that more than 60% of Colombian coffee exports pass through the port. With the roads blocked, exporters are unable to transport cargo from the interior to the terminal normally. Gómez stated that the road to Buenaventura is not approved for foreign trade vehicles, including those destined for export and import. “I cannot, at this moment, take cargo to the port of Buenaventura from the interior of the country,” said the director. Coffee is trapped between production and export The problem is not just concentrated in access to the port. The earthquake hit a region that contains an important part of the Colombian coffee processing structure. According to Gómez, many exporters maintain facilities in Manizales, Pereira and Armenia, in the so-called Coffee Axis, in addition to Cartago, in the department of Valle del Cauca. In practice, this creates a bottleneck at different stages of the chain: the coffee can be produced, processed and ready for shipment, but it cannot reach the port. Even producing regions that suffered less damage from the earthquake face difficulties in transporting production. Huila, Tolima, Cauca and Nariño, for example, also have problems finding trucks to take coffee to alternative ports. More than 1,000 containers could be stuck. There is still no official estimate of how much coffee is actually stopped due to the interruption. Asoexport, however, calculated the possible impact of a week of restrictions. Colombia exports around 1 million bags of coffee per month. Roughly divided by weeks, this represents around 250 thousand bags. If restrictions persist for a week, this flow could be equivalent to more than 600 vehicles and more than 1,000 containers dammed, according to the association. The number is a projection to size the bottleneck and does not mean that 250 thousand bags are already stopped. The difficulty of removing processed coffee is also beginning to affect exporting companies themselves. Without sufficient space and transportation to transport the product, the sector may reduce the processing pace. This creates an effect that reaches producers. According to Gómez, if the situation persists, the logistical difficulties could also affect the purchase of coffee from farmers. “Operations are very slow, almost paralyzed, and this could harm the purchase of coffee,” he said. Sector tries to divert coffee to other ports With Buenaventura compromised, exporters began to evaluate alternatives on the Caribbean coast. Among the options are Cartagena, Santa Marta and Puerto Antioquia. According to Asoexport, operators of these terminals are working on contingency plans to receive additional cargo. The change of route, however, does not solve the problem alone. Coffee needs to be taken from producing regions and processing units to Caribbean ports, and the lack of trucks has become another obstacle. Furthermore, some of the alternative routes themselves are affected by landslides and blockages. Among the paths affected is the Letras-Fresno-Manizales route, used to transport