Nestlés project aims to make Vietnam international reference for Robusta coffee

Vietnam’s Robusta coffee does not pursue the goal of being the world's No.1 in production or productivity, but how to help coffee growers to get high profits, Vietnamese coffee to be popular with many people around the world, creating a general value chain and aiming at sustainable development for coffee products, as well as making Vietnam become the reference place for the world’s Robusta coffee.

Those are the goals that the Nescafé plan project of Nestlé Vietnam has been carrying out in the past ten years in four Central Highlands provinces, including Dak Lak, Dak Nong, Lam Dong, and Gia Lai.

From 2011 to now, the project has distributed over 46 million disease-resistant coffee seedlings to farmers, renovated and replanted 46,000 hectares of old coffee trees. It has developed the management tool Digital Farmer Field Book, based on digital technology FARMS App - Farmer Relationship Management Solution, and closely connected farmers and experts to help farmers to manage production and business activities effectively, and replace the paper-based management. Through training on sustainable farming techniques for more than 260,000 farmers with the participation of agricultural engineers, the project has helped to save 40 percent of water for irrigation, reduced 20 percent of chemical fertilizers and pesticides by composting coffee cascaras to make organic fertilizers. Moreover, more than 21,000 farmers have achieved 4C certification. With this application, the income of farmers has increased by more than 30 percent.

The project has been implemented in ten countries since 2010 under the model of public-private partnership and in Vietnam one year later. Although it was carried out later in Vietnam, its efficiency comes faster, said Mr. Binu Jacob, General Director of Nestlé Vietnam.