Coffee farmers supported in sustainable farming

Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) and authorities in the Central Highland province of Lâm Dong have supported hundreds of coffee farmers to change the landscape at their farms, thus promoting sustainable agriculture.

Getting supports from IDH and local authorities, housholds in Di Linh District could build reservoirs and have enough water for their coffee farms during dry seasons. Photo: MH.

The reservoir at the coffee farm of Le Ngoc Toan in Tan Nghia Commune, Di Linh District in the Central Province of Lam Dong has provided water for more than 20 ha of coffee in the neighbourhood.

Toan donated land and the IDH’s Initiative for Sustainable Landscapes (ISLA) gave financial assistance to dig the reservoir in October last year.

The reservoir with a total area of 3,000 sq.m and a depth of 4 metres could contain up to 11,000 cu.m of water.

“Thanks to stable water supply, coffee grew well during the last dry season,” Toan said, adding that in previous years, local coffee farms usually did not have enough water to water their coffee during dry seasons.

“For many times, coffee farmers built small-sized reservoirs but all of them turned dry in dry seasons,” Toan said.

“It was very difficult to build a big reservoir. For the last few years, coffee prices kept falling so few farmers could manage dozens of millions of Vietnamese dong to dig a reservoir,” he said, adding that for a long time, coffee farmers have to rely on rainwater.

Toan’s neighbour Doan My was also supported to build a new reservoir.

Since 2018, the IDH’s Initiative for Sustainable Landscapes (ISLA) implemented its landscape programme in localities with large areas of coffee, peppers and fruits in Lam Dong and Dak Lak. The programme is expected to be expanded across the Central Highland region, reaching 357,000 ha in 2025.

A local official said that such public reservoirs would help store water, part of the water could be absorbed into the ground, helping improve underground water.

Intercropping

Besides reservoirs, the IDH also supported Lam dong in forest protection thanks to intercropping models.

Bui Duc Hao, IDH’s programme coordinator in central and Central Highland regions said that in Di Linh District, a large area of farming land bordered with forest land.

Under the IDH’s landscape programme, more than 30,000 seedlings were given to local farmers so that they planted together with coffee. Local farmers were instructed proper techniques to nurse the trees.

Until now, on over 980 ha of forestry that farmers grew coffee, forestry trees were planted with the density of 80 trees per hectare.

Previously, the intercropping rate in Di Linh District was on average about six per cent but two years after the implementation of IDH’s programme, the rate increased to 20 per cent. In some communes where the programme was carried out, the rate increased from 9 per cent in 2018 to 48.5 per cent in mid-2020.

Intercropping model - forestry trees are grown together with coffee - helps farmers increase incomes and better protect forest. 

“Intercropping not only helps increase economic profits but also protect soil and water. The models also contributed to poverty reduction in the localities,” Hao said.

IDH also cooperated with local forest rangers and forestry companies to oversee the forest protection and improve public awareness of forest protection, thus reducing forest-relating violations.

According to Di Linh District People’s Committee, in 2020, IDH conducted a survey about coffee farms of 97 households in Tan Nghia Commune and then, assessed and offered detailed designs for them.

Together with farmers’ opinions, the farms’ landscape was changed to promote sustainable farming, increase the quality of farming products and environmental protection.

Di Linh District authority called on IDH to expand its programme to the other two communes of Dinh Lac and Gung Re. Accordingly, the IDH would partly fund the intercropping in forestry land and continue its landscape programme in coffee-growing areas in 19 commune and towns of Di Linh between 2021 and 2025.