LONDON, April 15 (Reuters) - The International Coffee Organization has cut its forecast for world coffee production in 2008/09 to 127.0 million 60-kg bags from a previous forecast of 127.8 million, ICO Executive Director Nestor Osorio said in a monthly market report on Wednesday.
   The fall partly reflected reduced production prospects for several Central American countries, particularly Guatemala where the 2008/09 crop is now put at 3.37 million bags, down from a previous estimate of 3.90 million.
   "The reduction in Colombian and Central American crop is contributing to the creation of a fragile supply/demand balance," Osorio said.
   "This fragile balance is particularly worrying at a time when stocks are at their lowest levels and Brazilian production in 2009/10 is expected to be lower, since this is the off-year in the biennial arabica production cycle," he added.
   The ICO put Colombian production in 2008/09 at 10.50 million bags, unchanged from the previous month's estimate but down from 12.52 million in 2007/08.
   Osorio put world consumption in calendar 2008 at 128 million bags, up from 126.5 million in 2007.
   He did not provide an estimate for 2009 but said there was no indication of any significant impact from the world economic crisis on consumption. (Reporting by Nigel Hunt; Editing by Sue Thomas) 
 

 By Marcy Nicholson
   BOCA RATON, March 19 (Reuters) - Colombia, the world's third biggest coffee producer, looks set to produce 11 million 60-kg bags in 2009, down from last year's 11.48 million bags, a spokesman for the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia said Thursday.
   "It's not the official projection from our technical department but it's taking technical information into account. It's what we are using from the commercial side for planning purposes, in terms of exporting and selling, etcetera," the federation's commercial manager Juan Restrepo told Reuters. 
  

06:22 17Mar09 -Brazil coffee farmers protest low prices, debt
    By Peter Murphy
   VARGINHA, Brazil, March 16 (Reuters) - Thousands of Brazilian coffee farmers abandoned their fields on Monday and swarmed into the streets of this town to demand government help to continue what they say is now a loss-making activity.
   The farmers poured out of buses from towns across Minas Gerais state, the top coffee region in the world's No. 1 grower, and paraded in silence with banners calling for an end to a vicious circle of high costs, low prices and rising debt. 
  

	2008/09	2007/08	2006/07
Octorber	39.000	41.000	39.000
November	71.000	70.000	85.000
December	130.000	110.000	100.000
January	136.000	171.000	244.000
February	150.000*	77.000	118.000
March		97.000	174.000
April		78.000	130.000
May		73.000	91.000
June		96.000	76.000
July		76.000	57.000
August		49.000	45.000
September		48.000	38.000
Total		986.000	1.197.000
Oct/Feb	526.000	469.000	586.000
* Estimate Source: GSO

                @2009 F.O Litch GmbH                            Vol.23, No.19/04.03.2009