Rain cheers Vietnam coffee, but officials cautious
HANOI - Heavy rain in the past week in Vietnam's coffee-growing Central Highlands has revived hopes of a
better-than-forecast 2002/2003 crop, but agriculture officials said the next harvest would still yield much less
than normal.
Meteorologists said rain had swept across almost half of Daklak province, which produces some 60 percent
of Vietnam's coffee, in the past week.
"Some areas got heavy rain for one or two
days, especially Buon Ma Thuot, where it
rained for three consecutive days," a
hydro-meteorologist in Daklak told Reuters on
Friday.
"This is good news for trees."
However, the meteorologist said the rains were
not an indication that the rainy season, which
normally starts in the Central Highlands in late
April, was coming early.
He also said there had been no rain at all in
the north-eastern and eastern parts of the
province, where important coffee planting
districts such as Krong Buk and Krong Pak
are located.
"In practice, such a rainy period will usually be
followed by a couple of weeks of dryness before the rainy season comes at the end of April or early May,"
he said.
Rains have also fallen since late last week in the Central Highlands provinces of Kontum and Lam Dong as
well as in the coffee-growing province of Binh Phuoc, south of Daklak.
The National Hydrography and Meteorology Forecast Centre said last week Vietnam was suffering its worst
dry spell since 1997/1998 and it was expected to last until May.
A senior official at Daklak Agriculture Department said the dry weather over the past few months meant
output from the next coffee crop was still expected to be well down on last year.
He said Daklak was expected to yield just 216,000 tonnes of beans, or 60 percent of its normal productivity.
"While it's good for the trees in some parts of Daklak to see rains in the past week, many farmers have
abandoned their fields because they couldn't cope with watering costs and low prices," said Phan Muu
Binh, the director of the department.
"As a result, the next harvest will be about 40 percent lower than usual."
Two weeks ago, Binh told Reuters the province's 2002/03 coffee crop was forecast at 270,000 tonnes, from
the record 450,000 tonnes it produced in the 1999/2000 crop.
The Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association last week lowered its forecast for the overall 2002/03 coffee
crop to 600,000 tonnes, an estimate some traders called premature, partly due to the dry weather.
Traders often consider forecasts of the country's coffee output given by Vietnamese officials underestimates
motivated by a desire to boost world prices from 30-year lows seen in the past year.
The Ministry of Agriculture and other government departments met last week to discuss steps to combat
the dry weather in central and southern Vietnam, which included possible water rationing.
Financial Times Information Limited - Asia Africa Intelligence Wire - March 30, 2002.
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