Central Highlands ensures sufficient water for coffee trees

Water resources in the Central Highlands will supply enough water to irrigate coffee tree areas in the region until the end of the dry season, according to the Steering Committee for Central Highlands.

The Central Highland provinces have entered the dry season but irrigation projects, rivers, streams and wells are holding sufficient water for irrigating coffee trees, the committee said.

Thanks to rains even prolonged downpours, appearing in the region in late last year and early this year, local coffee farmers have just watered coffee trees two times, instead of three or four times like in the previous years, helping them save more water.

The use of water-efficient irrigation system also helps the farmers reduce the amount of water needed to irrigate coffee areas.

Though, the region still lacks a lot of irrigation projects. The fact could cause great damage to farmers if there would be similar prolonged droughts in recent years.

In 2016, almost 134,600 hectares of coffee trees in the region saw reduced outputs due to water shortage, of which nearly 7,900 hectares died or did not produce any coffee beans.

The whole region currently has over 2,350 irrigation projects, which ensure water for nearly 19.5 percent of its total coffee areas. The remaining coffee areas are irrigated by water resources from rivers, streams, and wells.

Dak Lak province, which has the largest area of coffee trees, has just 770 irrigation works capable of providing water for 52,000 hectares while 152,000 hectares are irrigated with water from rivers, streams, and wells.

The Central Highlands region now has 576,800 hectares of coffee trees, accounting for 89 percent of the country’s total coffee areas.