Vietnam coffee haven faces uncertain future
BUON MA THUOT - Booming private coffee cultivation in Vietnam's central
highland province of Daklak has brought riches to
many, but the race for quick cash threatens long-term
sustainability, experts have warned.
They said land use controls, better water management,
lower fertiliser use and improved farming methods were
urgently needed.
``Coffee growing in this area has to be better
controlled,'' Frank Gerke, senior adviser on a
German-financed project to improve state coffee farms
in the area, told Reuters in the provincial capital Buon
Ma Thuot.
``If they continue with uncontrolled growing then maybe
in five years there will be a major problem with water.''
Statistics show Daklak has 172,000 hectares (425,000
acres) under coffee cultivation, up more than 90,000
hectares (222,390 acres) since 1991. Officials say the
real figure could be higher although no-one knows
exactly.
Daklak accounts for around 60 percent of all coffee
grown in Vietnam and in calendar 1997 exported
205,000 tonnes.
Around 84 percent of coffee trees in the province
belong to private smallholders with plots ranging from
less than half a hectare to about 15 hectares. The
balance is held by state-owned farms, officials said.
Gerke said the race to push yields higher had put most
coffee trees in the province under constant stress.
Yields were high, ranging from three to seven tonnes
per hectare.
But with farmers using up to a tonne of nitrogen fertiliser
per hectare, cutting trees from watershed areas and
relying on mono-cultivation the future might not be
bright, Gerke said.
Production has boomed, but a sustained drought earlier
this year has affected quality and yields in the current
1998/99 crop. Some coffee trees have died, others
failed to produce and the size of beans is smaller than
normal.
While coffee has brought riches to many previously
poverty-stricken farmers, others have found the dream
elusive and fallen heavily into debt, said Philip Riddell, a
specialist working on a Danish-funded water resource
project in Daklak.
``Coffee is making money for a huge amount of people
yet this year it has brought abject poverty to a number
of households...and we estimate that household debts
worth tens of millions of dollars were rendered
unserviceable,'' he said.
Riddell said farmers were not investing profits for
long-term sustainability, preferring to buy consumer
products or motorbikes.
Nestled close to the Cambodian border, Duc Minh
commune typifies the new coffee mentality.
With a population of 11,200 people, all households
grow coffee but few drink the bitter brew, a local
official said.
Vietnam's farmers are able to command some of the
highest farmgate coffee prices in the world, and new
money in the commune has built a Catholic church,
flashy houses and roads.
Local television and newspapers have daily world
coffee reports, and it is common for semi-literate
farmers to discuss London coffee futures.
A farmer in Duc Minh, 60 km (38 miles) southwest of
Buon Ma Thuot, said while some feared the coffee
bubble could burst, people were unwilling to invest in
new farming methods or lower planned yields to ease
stress on the trees.
``We live with coffee, we die with coffee,'' she said.
A foreign agronomist in Buon Ma Thuot said
comprehensive policies and research were essential.
``The whole thing needs a systematic approach to
research. ...They should slow down coffee production
to sustainable levels and they probably need to end up
with different models of production,'' he said.
Reuters - November 13, 1998.
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