Brazil to provide 2.16 bln reais in coffee funding

SAO PAULO, May 2 (Reuters) - Brazil will open credit lines worth R$2.16 billion ($1.31 billion) to the country's coffee industry to finance harvesting, storage and purchases of the 2008/2009 crop which has just begun early harvesting, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

Banco do Brasil, the country's largest state-run commercial bank, handles most of the government-subsidized financing for the agricultural sector.

(Reporting by Peter Murphy; Editing by David Gregorio)