According to the Vietnam Coffee – Cocoa Association, the coffee production in 2015/16 crop year is likely to reduce more than 20%, compared to the plan.

Harvesting coffee. (Source: VNA)

The 2015/16 is the third consecutive crop of coffee bad harvest, causing the great damage to farmers as well as production and business enterprises.

The reason for the production decrease is said that from the beginning of the crop year, the key coffee farming provinces such as Dak Lak, Lam Dong, Dak Nong, Gia Lai suffered from severe and prolonged drought, causing that tens of thousands of hectares of coffee in the business period lacking water for irrigation were died of thirst or had dry branches, difficult to take care for recovery.

In Dak Lak province, which has the largest coffee area in the country, over 204,500 hectares, in the last dry season, there were 47,835 hectares of coffee lacking water for irrigation, causing death or  dry branches, reducing yield and production by 15-20% compared to the the previous crop year.

On the other hand, the old coffee area which is at the end of its business cycle with low productivity and low economic efficiency more and more increases, while the implementation of replanting is slow. Only in the Central Highlands provinces, the area of over 20-year old ​​coffee (older, at the end of the business cycle) that needs to be replanted from now to 2020 is more than 120,000ha. However, due to a lack of capital, the coffee replanting implemented by farmers and enterprises is still limited with the progress not as expected.

Coffee cherries are in the mature stage, coffee farmers and enterprises focus on caring, fertilization and pest prevention to increase their size and bean weight as well as reduce the fall of young cherries./.

Quang Huy (VNA/Vietnam+)