Huge gains predicted for Vietnamese growers

Some fantastic news for the Vietnamese coffee industry has hit the press in the past couple of days: Recently released forecasts expect the country, the world’s largest grower of robusta, to gather a record crop of coffee for the 12 month period leading up to October 2015.

If the forecasts turn out to be true then it will mark an incredibly short turnaround in the country’s fortunes after they adopted a number of preventative measures earlier on this year.

Previously on World Coffee Press we have lauded the nation’s decision to forgo a large harvest this growing season by looking to secure future output.

Back in May it was announced that the Vietnamese coffee industry would be looking to replant a large proportion of their coffee plants as part of a long-term scheme. Surprisingly, they could be reaping their rewards sooner than anybody imagined – especially as the industry was bracing itself for an additional 6% decline after Vietnam was subjected to a cold snap.

We are planning to undergo a long-term process of replacing old coffee trees, and this, together with the current dry weather conditions, will hurt coffee output,” said the general secretary of the Vietnam Coffee-Cocoa Association (VCCA), Nguyen Viet Vinh earlier this year.

But those predictions of pain appear to be short-lived as re-planted areas with hardier coffee trees are already coming up trumps.

“New plantations are starting to be productive,” said Phan Hung Anh, the deputy director of Anh Minh Company, one of Vietnam’s largest private exporters of coffee.

“These new varieties are not only more resistant to harsh weather conditions, but their yields are much higher than older trees.”

According to figures reported initially by Bloomberg, the average yield per hectare is expected to jump up from 2.65 tons to 2.83, a rise of nearly 9%.

As well as protecting the industry against adverse weather patterns – some of which have blighted production levels in Brazil, India and even Vietnam this year – the replanting initiative was also sanctioned because it would improve yields, something which the VCCA’s president Luong Van Tu was at pains to point out when he talked about the plans a few months back.

At a time when rival Asian competitors are siphoning off more and more coffee for the domestic market, this news comes at a fantastic time. As a supplier to Nestle and Mondelez International to name but two multinational corporations, Vietnam could not only receive a bumper crop, they could receive a bumper windfall too.