“Robusta harvest volume this year is estimated below last year’s. This is because of extreme weather factor,” Muchtar Lutfie, an official with Association of Indonesian Coffee Exporters and Industries (AEKI) in Lampung, said Tuesday.

Lampung province is the top robusta producing in Indonesia’s main coffee growing island of Sumatra.

Indonesia’s statistic agency data showed that the province produced an estimated 116,300 tonnes of coffee last year.

Heavy rain hit the area during the time coffee plants starting to form cherries this year, causing them to fall off, Lutfie said, adding that farmers failed to minimize impact of unpredictable weather due to lack of knowledge in modern cultivation methods.

Meanwhile, some farmers have recently switched to other crops as their coffee yield continued to drop in recent years.

“There are a number of farmers that have turned their coffee plantation to cabbage,” Lutfie said.