Cost coverage is the MG arabica price divided by CONAB's surveyed cost of production for the same site, as a percentage. Three hurdles are shown: variable cost (cash inputs), operational cost (variable plus fixed), and total economic cost (operational plus renda de fatores, the imputed opportunity cost of land, own capital and family labor). Costs are surveyed roughly twice a year and carried forward between surveys; prices are monthly.

A note on where the price is measured. The CCCMG quotation is delivered São Paulo, NPR-discounted and ex-tax, whereas the Espírito Santo page in this series uses a farmgate quote. The two coverage levels are therefore not directly comparable, and we have not tried to force them onto one basis: road haulage from the coffee belt to Santos runs roughly R$8–11 a bag against a quoted MG–ES gap of about R$128, so a freight netback would imply a precision the correction does not carry. We state the difference instead of adjusting for it.

We publish the coverage ratio and not CONAB's underlying cost level: that is a transformative statistic rather than a redistribution of their series, and it is in any case the more informative object — an absolute cost per bag says little without the price beside it.