After the earthquake, the coffee crisis. The violent earthquake that caused collapses and victims in Colombia on Monday 10 August could also have repercussions on coffee exports from the South American country, the third largest producer in the world after Brazil and Vietnam. After the 7.4 magnitude earthquake, operations in the country’s main port were suspended and the authorities ordered the closure of several highways.
Paralyzed exports
As confirmed to Bloomberg by Gustavo Gómez Montero, head of Asoexport (the coffee exporters association), the port of Buenaventura is effectively inaccessible due to several blocked roads. The interruptions are mainly concentrated near the tunnels along the Cali-Buenaventura highway, a key communication route for the country’s Pacific coast. “Coffee operations are currently suspended. Some individual shipments may be possible, but at the moment coffee exports are blocked – he explained -. At the moment there is no precise official information on when the road will be completely reopened.”
Damaged highways
Port managers are monitoring the earthquake damage and have had to block or limit the arrival of cargoes. The other ports in Colombia did not suffer serious damage, but moving the coffee northwards has become very difficult because there are no trucks. The situation is even more serious because most of the transport companies and factories are located right near the area affected by the earthquake, and now they are all at a standstill. Meanwhile, coffee prices on international markets suddenly collapsed after reaching record highs. Those who buy and sell coffee were in fact trying to understand how much the earthquake would damage trade in Colombia, which is the second largest producer of fine coffee in the world. In 2025, the country produced more than 13 million bags of coffee.
The harvest period
The timing of the earthquake is very unfortunate. In this period, in fact, coffee is harvested especially in the southern regions. Normally, all this harvest is shipped abroad from the port of Buenaventura, which is now in serious difficulty. The factories are still inspecting the damage. Luckily the buildings did not collapse, but the machinery cannot work. There is no electricity, telephone lines are isolated and many employees cannot go to work because they lost their homes in the earthquake.