Farmers harvest coffee in Đắk Lắk Province. – VNA/VNS Photo Anh Dũng

HCM CITY – The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development plans to replace 75,000ha of ageing coffee trees and graft 32,000ha more by 2025 to improve their yield and quality.

It targets an average yield of 3.5 tonnes per hectare a year from them and increasing farmers’ incomes by 1.5 – 2 times.

To achieve the targets, the main coffee growing provinces will draft plans for the replanting and grafting.

Land owners who want to replant or graft coffee trees have to register with their commune people’s committees and contact banks for loans.

The ministry plans to create new coffee strains suitable for each region that will offer high yield and quality and be resistant to diseases and adaptable to climate change.

Localities will establish seedling nurseries to meet the demand for replanting and train farmers in it and in grafting, according to the ministry.

They would also help set up co-operatives and linkages between coffee growers and consumers, and cultivate organic coffee, it said.

The ministry will collaborate with international organisations to access official development assistance loans for replanting and grafting.

In recent years the country has taken a number of measures to replace ageing coffee trees.

The Tây Nguyên region, which comprises Lâm Đồng, Đắk Nông, Gia Lai, Kon Tum, and Đắk Lắk provinces, has strengthened advocacy to persuade land owners to replace ageing trees with high-quality varieties.

The region has 639,000ha under coffee, for 92 per cent of the county’s total. It has an average yield of 28.5 tonnes per hectare per year. 

The Tây Nguyên provinces have also encouraged farmers to link up with companies to grow coffee to international standards for export.

Vũ Đức Côn, deputy director of the Đắk Lắk Province Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said more than 32,000 coffee farming households in the province have done this and meet global standards such as the common code for the coffee community (4C), UTZ, Rainforest, and Fair Trade. 

The province, which has the largest area under coffee in the Tây Nguyên, has more than 45,670ha of land with international quality certification, or 22.1 per cent of the total coffee area, he added. – VNS