Brazil is known for its large farms, but nearly 60% of the arabica coffee produced in in the country is grown by smallholders.
Brazilian farms are characterised by technified, full-sun production. Coffee trees are planted at high densities, in widely spaced rows to allow harvesting machinery to pass between them.
Coffee in Brazil is mainly mechanically harvested or strip-picked. Brazil has high labour costs, flat terrain in coffee-growing regions, and uniform ripening thanks to predictable rainfall patterns — all factors that favour mechanical harvesting.
The mechanical coffee harvester was invented in Brazil in 1979 by Shunji Nishimura.
Certain cultivars, such as Mundo Novo, Yellow Caturra, and Catuaí, are particularly suited to mechanical harvesting.