Photo: tintaynguyen.com

PANO – 50,000 coffee farmers in the Central Highlands have benefited from a project on reducing the quantity of water necessary for production.

The project is being jointly carried out by the Nestlé Corporation, the Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development (SDC) and the German EDE Consulting between April 2015 and 2019.

It aims to further promote the capacity of irrigation management for coffee farmers, set up an early-warning weather system to help planters optimize the management of their plantations, open training courses to 50,000 locals in line with the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) Criteria, and make recommendations to State management agencies to build a water management policy and multiply the project.

The success of applying the project’s production techniques in reality has contributed to raising coffee yields and minimizing the environmental impact and the quantity of water needed for production. Notably, the project has helped coffee farmers reduce water they use from 700 litres to 400 litres per tree.

Vietnam, the second largest coffee producer in the world after Brazil, has created jobs for 2.6 million local workers in the sector. Meanwhile, the Central Highlands accounts for more than 95 per cent of the coffee growing area in the country.

Translated by Van Hieu