Coffee plantation owners in Vietnam are devoting more land to pepper cultivation with prices of the spice rising eight times faster than those of coffee. Pepper prices in Vietnam, already the world’s largest producer and exporter of black pepper, have climbed 16 percent to 184,000 dong ($8.45) per kilogram since the start of 2014 as global output lagged demand, outpacing the 2 percent gain in coffee prices during the same period.
Pepper will strike at the heart of Vietnam’s coffee cultivation zone in the Central Highlandsas pepper vines thrive in the same soil conditions conducive to the growing of coffee trees.
Both crops equally take three years to become productive. Pepper vines planted last year will bear fruit in 2017.
“Many coffee farms have started growing pepper, and it is obvious from distance, because of the high pole that supports the vines,” said a coffee trader at a foreign firm in Ho Chi Minh City.
