Photo: agroviet

PANO - The first training centre for Vietnamese coffee farmers will be established to help them meet international standards, improve the sustainability and productivity of crops and increase their earnings.

The establishment of such a centre was confirmed according to a cooperation agreement recently signed in Lam Dong province by IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and Atlantic Commodities Vietnam Ltd, a subsidiary of ECOM Agro-industrial Corporation. 

The Vietnam training centre is part of a larger plan for IFC to provide investment and advisory services to help ECOM Group, a global coffee trader, establish several farmer training centres.

The plan includes a US $55 million five-year corporate loan facility for use in six countries, including Vietnam, which was committed in June 2008.  

The new training centre, which will target 4,000 farming households over three years, will help smallholder farmers qualify for sustainable coffee certifications like Utz, Rainforest, or 4C.

As ECOM and other buyers pay premium prices for certified coffee beans, farmers joining the training centres should see their incomes increase through certification. ACOM and IFC expect about 50,000 non-ACOM farmers to benefit indirectly from exposure to best management practices, and information disseminated by the project. 

Mai Huong