Brazil is South America’s most influential and economically powerful country and one of the world’s largest economies. It also produces over a third of the world’s coffee, with over 5 million people in the country employed in the cultivation or harvest of over 3 billion coffee plants. The strength or weakness of the global coffee market is largely governed by what happens in Brazil, such is the size of its yearly harvest. El Nino – the weather system that dictates climatic conditions in the country during the summer months – also has a major impact on the coffee futures market.
