Hanoi (VNA) - The coffee industry is restructuring itself to raiseproductivity, quality and value, according to the Vietnam Coffee and CocoaAssociation. Under the programme, the area under coffee is being kept at600,000ha and there is a focus on planting new trees with higher productivityand quality, Luong Van Tu, the association’s chairman, said. The industry would work to increase exports of processedcoffee to achieve revenues of 5-6 billion USD by 2030, he said. That would mean increasing the ratio of processed coffeefrom the current 10 percent to 30-40 percent. Speaking at a recent seminar titled “Future Development ofVietnam Coffee Industry towards 2030”, Doan Xuan Hoa, former deputy director ofthe Department of Processing and Trade for Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Products andSalt Production, said the coffee industry has developed strongly in the last 10years, exporting 1.2-1.5 million tonnes worth 1.7-1.8 billion USD a year andaccounting for 15-20 percent of the country’s agricultural exports. Vietnam is the world’s second largest coffee exporter andleads the world in Robusta coffee production and export. But the exports remainin the form of unprocessed beans with little value addition. The industry is facing several problems like small scale ofproduction, ageing coffee trees, poor quality control, and outdated processingtechnologies. Some 140,000-160,000ha need to be replanted in the nextfive to 10 years, a big challenge for the industry, he said. Le Van Duc, deputy head of the Crop Production Department,said in 2014-15 the five provinces of Lam Dong, Dak Lak, Dak Nong, Gia Lai, andKon Tum, the main coffee growing areas, worked to replant more than 61,700ha. The figure is expected to reach nearly 80,000ha this year,he said. Truong Hong, director of the Western Highlands Agricultureand Forestry Science Institute, said new coffee varieties play an importantrole in ensuring Vietnam’s coffee industry develops sustainably. The new varieties help improve yields, quality and economicefficiency, and increase the co-efficiency of using water and fertilisers andprotect the environment, he said. Delegates at the seminar proposed several measures for theindustry to develop in a sustainable manner, like investing in processingtechnologies to add value to coffee products and developing linkages betweenproducers and processing companies. Local authorities should review coffee zoning plans and switchcrops where productivity is poor, Hoa said. The industry’s sustainable development would require morefinancial support and credit policies from the Government, he said.

According to the International Coffee Organisation, thebean requires relatively specific climatic conditions to thrive.
ꦿ As the world heats up and extreme weather events becomemore frequent, these specific climatic conditions are likely to become morescarce, it said.

These developments would require countries to implementco-ordinated mitigation and adaptation strategies to continue producing qualitycoffee, it said. This is an issue that needs to be tackled jointly to ensurethat coffee remains a viable crop, it said. This is why it is so important for countries to plan ahead,and to have a strategy for sustainable coffee production in the long term, itadded. — VNA