Gia Lai develops sustainable coffee to combat deforestation

Amidst the trend of coffee prices consistently staying high, Mr. Nguyen Van Hoan, Deputy Director of Gia Lai’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, advises farmers to maintain the current coffee acreage and avoid expanding production impulsively based on short-term market price surges.

According to him, coffee farmers in Gia Lai should focus on intensive cultivation and improving productivity through technical solutions. For aging coffee plantations, replanting requires selecting high-yield, disease-resistant varieties that have been quality certified. Additionally, farmers must enhance production quality to meet international export standards, employ surface water-saving irrigation, and limit the use of groundwater.

In response to the European Union’s proposed anti-deforestation regulations for coffee products, Mr. Hoan noted that Europe is a major export market for Vietnamese coffee. Under these new regulations, coffee grown on deforested land will not meet export conditions.

Thus, in the future, localities will need to strengthen forest protection efforts and prevent deforestation for coffee cultivation. According to Mr. Hoan, Gia Lai province will implement a project to identify coffee-growing areas to assess whether any of them lie within deforested regions.

Coffee is a key crop in Gia Lai province, with a total area of over 105,000 hectares, spread across 10 districts and cities. The main areas are Chu Se, Dak Doa, Ia Grai, Chu Prong, among others. Of this, nearly 60,000 hectares of coffee are produced following standards such as VietGAP, 4C, RA, FLO, and C.A.F.E.