Coffee production has shifted toward Asia over the last six decades

Coffee is part of daily life for millions of people around the world. It’s also a key source of income and employment in many countries. In this chart, I want to focus on the shift in where it is grown over the last six decades.

The chart shows the breakdown of global green coffee bean production by region, from 1961 to 2024. Green coffee beans are those that haven’t yet been roasted.

South America has been the largest producing region throughout this period, but its share of global output has fallen, as has Africa’s. The biggest story is the growth of coffee production in Asia: it went from producing less than 5% of the world’s coffee in the early 1960s to about 32% today.

Much of Asia’s growth comes from Vietnam, where production rose from around 5,000 tonnes in the early 1980s to about 2 million tonnes today. It now produces more than all African countries combined.

This expansion was driven largely by the spread of Robusta, a hardier and higher-yielding variety than Arabica, which is the type that dominates Latin American production.

Brazil is the world’s largest producer, while Vietnam is now second. Colombia used to be in that position, but Vietnam overtook it in 1999.