Faced with increasingly complex climate change and sudden increases in coffee prices, Dak Lak province has been promoting sustainable development solutions for this key agricultural product.

According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Dak Lak Province, the coffee price in the 2023-2024 coffee crop year has increased dramatically and is currently maintaining a high level, reaching 128,000 VND per kg of green coffee on November 28. The sudden increase in coffee prices brings a large source of income to farmers. However, this greatly affects the disruption in the supply chain of units linking raw material regions, at the same time, military conflicts in countries around the world affect the global supply chain, prices escalate, and the world economy continues to have high inflation, causing many difficulties for the coffee market.

Along with that, EU countries have issued decrees prohibiting the import of coffee related to deforestation and tightening regulations on pesticide residues for coffee, leading to restrictions on exports to these countries.

Therefore, coffee production, trading and export in Dak Lak Province still face many difficulties, and the situation of "bad harvest, good price" continues to occur due to climate change, drought, pests and diseases, causing a decrease in coffee production.

Many areas of replanted coffee in Dak Lak have high productivity and economic efficiency.

Faced with this situation, to improve the productivity and quality of coffee in the area, in recent years, Dak Lak Province has been implementing many solutions to support farmers in developing the coffee industry sustainably.

Accompanying the province's Coffee Replanting Programme through the Public-Private Partnership Programme (PPP), Nestlé Vietnam Limited Company, in coordination with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Central Highlands Agricultural and Forestry Science and Technology Institute, organised seedling support for 14 districts, towns and cities with price support of VND 1,000 per seedling.

In 2024 alone, the total number of seedlings supported is about 5,247,260 for 5,573 farmers to replant.

Linking the production and consumption of organic coffee according to the product value chain associated with eco-tourism is increasingly developing in Dak Lak.

In addition, Nestlé Vietnam Limited Liability Company is implementing an agroforestry model, including diverse service crops to support sustainable coffee production, conserve soil, reduce the impact of climate change, promote biodiversity and increase farmers' income through diversifying income sources from orchards.

In 2024, the Company supported 80,493 seedlings, including forest and fruit trees intercropped in replanted coffee gardens for 300 farmers in the program's implementation areas.

To effectively serve the Coffee Garden Replanting Programme, the Western Highlands Agriculture and Forestry Science Institute (WASI) has researched, bred and selected nine high-quality coffee lines.

On the other hand, in recent times, the agricultural sector of Dak Lak Province has always focused on promoting and guiding people to promote sustainable coffee production with certification and confirmation to improve the quality of the province's exported coffee. In addition, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has issued five codes for domestic growing areas with an area of ​​631 hectares of coffee.

In particular, Dak Lak Province recently paid attention to implementing solutions to adapt to the European Union's Regulation on no deforestation and forest degradation.

Along with solutions to support production, Dak Lak Province also pays special attention to attracting investment in the coffee processing sector to improve the quality of the province's exported coffee.

Deputy Director of the Department of Industry and Trade of Dak Lak Province Nguyen Van Nhiem said the whole province has over 200 coffee processing facilities, including large-capacity coffee processing factories such as Ngon Coffee, Trung Nguyen, Intimex, An Thai, Simexco Dak Lak and Dak Man Limited Liability Company.

In 2023, the output of processed coffee beans will reach 466,000 tonnes, ground coffee will reach 32,000 tonnes, and instant coffee will reach 10,200 tonnes. It is expected that in 2024, the output of processed coffee will be 522,750 tonnes, of which green coffee reached 371,000 tonnes, ground coffee of all kinds reached 25,240 tonnes, and instant coffee reached 9,920 tonnes.

Foreign partners visit the organic coffee processing facility of Vuong Thanh Cong Production and Trading Company Limited, Buon Ma Thuot City, Dak Lak Province.

As a key agricultural product, coffee export turnover always accounts for a large proportion of the total export turnover of Dak Lak Province. Specifically, in the 2023-2024 coffee crop, Dak Lak Province exported 264,404 tons of coffee, accounting for 17.9% of the whole country; export turnover reached 915.795 million USD, an increase of 168.238 million USD compared to the previous crop, accounting for 16.9% of the country.

Dak Lak's coffee beans are mainly exported to traditional markets such as Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Italy, and the US. At the same time, the province is promoting the exploitation of new markets with great potential in regions such as Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa and large market areas such as the EU, ASEAN, Northeast Asia, and Oceania.

Currently, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is consulting the Dak Lak Provincial People's Committee to approve the "Dak Lak Sustainable Coffee Project".

Therefore, localities need to continue to effectively implement the coffee replanting programme for the period 2021-2025, promote the development of speciality coffee production in the province to exploit new market segments, diversify products, increase added value, and meet the increasing demand of domestic and foreign markets.