The Việt Nam Coffee and Cocoa Association has submitted to the Government a strategic project to develop the coffee industry, focusing on maintaining coffee bean exports and developing deep processing to increase value-added products. Photo Nguyễn Dũng

Việt Nam needs policies encouraging the development of cocoa trees with a focus on productivity and quality instead of output for the sustainable development of the cocoa industry.

Experts spoke to Viet Nam News about this issue.

Lê Thanh Tùng - deputy head of Department of Crop Production

Việt Nam has developed cocoa trees, but in comparison to other crops, they are not very profitable for growers.

This is because Việt Nam has only recently developed cocoa in a small area and cocoa trees are mainly intercropped with other industrial trees despite being unique cocoa. Cocoa output is just enough for a small business and they have processed chocolate products as their own brand.

The unique flavour is probably the major competitive advantage of Vietnamese cocoa because apart from Vietnamese varieties, there are also favourable farming techniques and natural conditions.

In my opinion, each enterprise should develop brands for chocolate products, creating a group of brands for Vietnamese chocolate products. That is suitable for the current cocoa production situation.

If we produce chocolate products from Vietnamese unique cocoa under a national brand of Việt Nam, the domestic cocoa industry needs large raw material areas which could be developed by large enterprises.

In the current agricultural restructuring process in Việt Nam, many localities have changed to cultivate to cocoa trees.

However, linking production with consumption is the most difficult point in the development of the domestic cocoa production industry, especially at the processing stage.

At present, the cocoa production in Việt Nam has been not developed and chocolate exports have reached small volume from small businesses. However, Vietnamese chocolate products can compete with the same products produced by enterprises in other countries because local enterprises have built their own brands.

Đặng Tường Khanh - General Director of Cocoa Trọng Đức Company

The State needs to have a master plan for cocoa development, while provinces that have conditions to develop cocoa trees such as Đắk Lắk, Gia Lai and Kon Tum should have support for the development of cocoa. State agencies of Đồng Nai Province have plans to facilitate the development of cocoa trees.

Đắk Lắk has chains of cocoa producers in some localities, so they develop cocoa production. Some localities have also had centres to raise knowledge for farmers to turn them into manufacturers.

Besides that, the State must accompany the cocoa industry that has many opportunities to develop due to high domestic demand from domestic cocoa processing companies such as Puratos and Trọng Đức.

In addition, it is necessary to have consumption guarantees for farmers. Trọng Đức purchased cocoa from farmers for five years with a floor price of VNĐ5,000/kg for fresh cocoa in 2013-18. In the next five years, this price will never be below VNĐ6,200/kg.

With this price, if farmers in Đồng Nai and Bà Rịa Vũng Tàu provinces intercrop cocoa trees with cashew trees, their annual income will be about VNĐ160-170 million per hectare with two kinds of industrial trees.

Nguyễn Văn Vinh, general secretary of the Vietnam Cocoa Coffee Association

Việt Nam has had hot development of coffee trees from 40,000ha to 640,000ha at present while cocoa trees lack interest.

However, we should not focus on developing product quantity. The cocoa industry needs to focus on increasing productivity and quality because Vietnamese cocoa has a unique flavour.

Agriculture has many hot-growing trees in output, so the cocoa industry should not target 25,000 hectares of cocoa trees. The industry should increase productivity and quality of cocoa as well as value-added chocolate products.

The Việt Nam Coffee and Cocoa Association has submitted to the Government a strategic project to develop the coffee industry, focusing on maintaining coffee bean exports and developing deep processing to increase value-added products. Viet Nam has mainly exported coffee beans and the domestic coffee industry lacks many value-added products.

We can consider intercropping coffee and cocoa trees because of the similar growing soil conditions.

In addition, the industry also needs to link farmers with businesses. Farmers really need businesses to support them in consumption to maintain stable production. — VNS