Six decades of global green-coffee production: who grows it, how fast it has grown, and where the trend points by 2030.
11.3Mtonnes of green coffee grown worldwide in 2024, roughly 2.5× the 1961 harvest
Photo: Daniel Reche / Pexelsscroll
Coffee is one of the most traded agricultural commodities on earth, yet the
plain question, how much do we actually grow, has a surprisingly specific
answer. This study pulls the full FAOSTAT record of green-coffee production,
cleans it, and projects where global output is heading.
Production has grown two and a half times since 1961
In 1961 the world harvested about 4.5 million tonnes of green coffee. By
2024 that figure reached 11.3 million tonnes, a steady climb driven by
rising demand and expanding cultivation. The solid line below is the historical
record. The dashed line is a forecast through 2030, and the shaded cone is its
80% uncertainty band.
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World green-coffee production, 1961 to 2024, with a Holt linear-trend forecast to 2030 (80% band). Source: FAOSTAT via Our World in Data.Almost every cherry behind these numbers is still picked by hand, on hillsides too steep for machines.Photo: 1500m Coffee / Pexels
A handful of countries grow most of it
Production is strikingly concentrated. Brazil alone accounts for roughly 30%
of the world’s green coffee, and together with Vietnam and Colombia the
top three grow more than half of it. That concentration is exactly why a frost
in Brazil or a drought in Vietnam moves the price on every café menu.
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Top 10 coffee-producing countries by output in 2024, labelled with each country's share of world production.Photo: Moussa Idrissi / Pexels
About 12.5 Mt by 2030, if the trend holds
Extending the historical trend points to roughly 12.5 million tonnes by
2030, with an 80% band running from about 11.0 to 13.9 Mt. This is a
baseline trajectory, not a market call. It assumes the growth regime of the
past continues, and it deliberately does not model climate shocks, price
swings, or shifting demand. That honesty is the point: the model is simple,
transparent, and fully reproducible from the script linked below.
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