Ben Tre (VNS/VNA) - Climate change has affected crop yields in the country but coconut can adapt and offer high value to farmers, experts have said.

The area under coconut is the fourth largest of industrial crops after rubber,coffee and cashew, with most of it being in the Mekong Delta and centralregion.

The Mekong province of Ben Tre has more than 71,000ha, or 50 percent of thecountry’s total area, according to its People’s Committee.

Tra Vinh, Tien Giang and Vinh Long are the other large coconut growing areas inthe delta.

Speaking at a seminar on November 17, Cao Van Trong, Chairman of the Ben TrePeople’s Committee, said the province’s exports of coconut products are wortharound 200 million USD a year and a quarter of all its exports.

However, coconut has not been developed to its full potential to boost Ben Tre’ssocio-economic development, he said.

Most coconut groves in Ben Tre are small and scattered, and farmers do not tendoptimally, he added.

Le Thanh Tung, deputy head of the Ministry of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment’s plant cultivation department, said Ben Tre should zone itscoconut growing areas to establish concentrated growing areas and factoryclusters that process coconut products.

It should help coconut farmers set up cooperatives, sign contracts withprocessors and exchange information among themselves, he said.

Coconut farmers should adopt the intensive farming method and intercrop coconutwith cacao, banana, orange, and grapefruit to improve incomes, he said.

They should adopt good agricultural practices (GAP) standards and advancedfarming techniques to improve quality, he said.

Coconut can cope with climate change well since it can adapt to water salinityof 0.5 – 0.6 percent, poor soil, rains, storms, flooding, and drought,according to the Southern Horticultural Research Institute.

Pham Van Duy, deputy head of the ministry’s processing department, said farmersshould choose high-quality and high-yield varieties to meet local and globaldemand.

The country exports a number of coconut products such as oil, candy, driedcopra, juice, handicrafts made from the shell to many countries.

In the first nine months of this year, they were worth 109.1 million USD,according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs./.