HO CHI MINH CITY – According to local media, Vietnam plans to establish a specialized Board with an aim to help growers find coffee products which have high quality and productivity as well as an appropriate planting method.
The establishment of such a board originates from the low results of coffee replanting over the past few years and the low survival rate of trees planted on the areas of old trees says the same source quoting Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh.
According to the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) Agriculture and Forestry Science and Technical Institute, around 88% of the coffee areas replanted by farmers die due to nematode infections.
Agribank has pledged VND12.9 trillion (US$611 million) to help enterprises and farmers to plant, take care of, replant, purchase, process and export coffee.
The loan terms will be 7-10 years with an interest rate which is 2 percentage points lower than the normal rate plus a grace period of three years.
Meanwhile, Tropical storm Krosa could weaken and dump rain as it nears Vietnam’s central coast, the national weather centre said, potentially disrupting the harvest in the country’s main coffee producing region.
Heavy rain could strike six central coastal provinces as well as the northern part of the Central Highlands coffee belt, according to reports. Lingering rain could affect production.
The storm, the 12th so far this year affecting Vietnam, could weaken into a tropical depression before making landfall late on Monday and moving further southwest to Laos, the state-run weather centre said in a report.
