Colombia earthquake disrupts coffee export logistics, threatens international shipments

A 7.4-magnitude earthquake that struck Colombia on Monday, August 10, disrupted part of the country’s coffee export logistics and raised fresh concerns for the international market for one of the world’s most widely consumed beverages.

Colombia is the world’s third-largest coffee producer, behind only Brazil and Vietnam, and plays a key role in the supply of washed arabica coffee, a variety prized by major international buyers. The country also exports most of its production.

Colombia produced about 14.8 million 60-kg bags in the 2024/25 crop and exported roughly 13 million bags in 2025.

That means the earthquake’s impact extends well beyond the areas directly hit by the disaster.

Road blockages and landslides on routes linking Colombia’s interior to the Pacific port of Buenaventura are making it harder to move coffee abroad and could delay deliveries if the disruption continues.

The situation has unsettled the international market because Colombia is one of the world’s leading coffee producers and the disruption comes on top of low global stocks and concerns over the effects of El Niño on world production.

Those concerns are already showing up in international prices. On Tuesday, August 11, the September arabica coffee contract rose 1.04% and closed at about $3.34 per pound. The increase came amid concerns over global supply, including the possible effects of the earthquake on Colombian coffee exports.

The scale of the problem is closely tied to Buenaventura’s importance in the coffee chain.

In an interview with local newspaper El Colombiano, Gustavo Gómez, president of Colombia’s national coffee exporters association Asoexport, said more than 60% of the country’s coffee exports pass through the port.

With roads blocked, exporters are unable to move cargo normally from the interior to the terminal. Gómez said the road to Buenaventura is not available for foreign trade vehicles, including those used for exports and imports.

“At this moment, I cannot take cargo from the interior of the country to the Port of Buenaventura,” he said.

Coffee trapped between processing and export

The problem is not limited to port access. The earthquake hit a region that includes an important part of Colombia’s coffee-processing infrastructure.

According to Gómez, many exporters have facilities in Manizales, Pereira and Armenia, in Colombia’s Coffee Axis, as well as in Cartago, in the department of Valle del Cauca.

In practice, that creates bottlenecks at different stages of the chain: coffee may be produced, processed and ready for shipment, but unable to reach the port.

Even producing regions that suffered less damage from the earthquake are having trouble moving coffee. Huila, Tolima, Cauca and Nariño, for example, are also facing difficulties finding trucks to take coffee to alternative ports.

More than 1,000 containers could be held up

There is still no official estimate of how much coffee is actually stuck because of the disruption. Asoexport, however, calculated the possible impact of one week of restrictions.

Colombia exports about 1 million bags of coffee per month. Broken down roughly by week, that equals about 250,000 bags.

If restrictions last for a week, that flow could translate into more than 600 vehicles and more than 1,000 containers being held up, according to the association.

The figure is a projection meant to illustrate the size of the bottleneck. It does not mean that 250,000 bags are already stuck.

The difficulty in moving processed coffee is also starting to affect exporters themselves. Without enough space and transport capacity to move the product, companies may reduce their processing pace.

That creates a knock-on effect for growers. Gómez said that if the situation persists, logistics difficulties could also affect coffee purchases from farmers.

“Operations are very slow, almost paralyzed, and that could hurt coffee buying,” he said.

Exporters look to divert coffee to other ports

With Buenaventura constrained, exporters have begun evaluating alternatives on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.

Options include Cartagena, Santa Marta and Puerto Antioquia. According to Asoexport, operators at those terminals are working on contingency plans to receive additional cargo.

Rerouting, however, does not solve the problem by itself. Coffee still has to be moved from producing regions and processing facilities to Caribbean ports, and the shortage of trucks has become another obstacle.

Some alternative routes have also been affected by landslides and blockages, including the Letras-Fresno-Manizales route used for freight transport.

Asoexport is working with the Colombian government to restore transport corridors. The strategy is to use Caribbean ports as needed and gradually resume operations through Buenaventura when conditions allow.

Growers also report damage

While exporters try to keep coffee moving, Colombia’s National Federation of Coffee Growers, known as FNC, is assessing damage in producing areas.

The federation said coffee-growing families in Risaralda, Valle del Cauca, Caldas, Antioquia, Chocó and Quindío suffered damage to homes, farms and rural infrastructure.

In Quindío, one of the main departments in the Coffee Axis, more than 150 producer families had already been identified as affected in the initial assessment.

José Martín Vásquez Arenas, executive director of the Quindío Coffee Growers Committee, said in a statement posted on social media that teams had been deployed across the department’s 12 municipalities to assess farm conditions.

The survey is intended to measure damage and guide the allocation of resources for families’ recovery. The institution also wants to ensure continued technical assistance and coffee purchasing in the region.

The assessment also found structural damage at municipal committees and agricultural supply warehouses in Filandia, Buenavista and Montenegro. The units were closed as a precaution while safety and infrastructure conditions are evaluated.

Other units in the department resumed operations on Wednesday, August 12, according to the Quindío Coffee Growers Committee.

Vásquez Arenas said local coffee growers have faced other difficult situations before and that families will continue to receive support.

“Quindío’s coffee sector has historically shown its resilience in the face of adversity, so we will not leave our coffee-growing families alone,” he said.

Disruption could reach international buyers

The logistics disruption does not end in Colombia. If coffee cannot reach the ports, exporters may struggle to meet delivery deadlines agreed with international buyers.

Asoexport said overseas customers are being informed about the situation to prevent possible delays from being interpreted as commercial or production problems at the companies.

There is still no firm timeline for exports to return to normal. The pace will depend on road recovery, restored access to Buenaventura and the capacity to use alternative routes.

Image generated with A.I.

Source: G1

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