Improvement of the sustainability of Arabica coffee cultivation and processing in Huong Hoa, Vietnam; Sara Lee DE and Kraft

As part of the PPP Project “Improvement of Coffee Quality and Sustainability of Coffee Production in Vietnam”

Coffee field

This project has now been completed. The aim of this project was to improve the sustainability of Arabica coffee cultivation and processing in the Huong Hoa district of Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. It took place in the context of social stratification with two main ethnic groups: the Kinh and the Van Kieu. The Kinh form the majority of the Vietnamese population. They are generally profit-maximizing farmers willing and able to invest in inputs and thus have higher coffee productivity. On the other hand, for the Van Kieu minority coffee is of limited interest and inputs are rarely used due to lack of capital, agricultural knowledge and incentives to invest in agriculture in general. The project concerned mainly Kinh farmers since they produce the bulk of the commercially processed coffee.

Farmer Field School meeting on planting techniques

Started in the end of 2001, the project was planned to end in June 2006. The project formed part of a larger Private-Public Partnership with the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ). Plant Research International (PRI), Wageningen, was partly responsible for management and implementation for the agricultural aspects, EDE consulting for the processing part. Tan Lam Company – formerly state owned and recently privatized - provided staff for the extension group and contacts with farmers.

Key activities were the following:

• Development of Farmer Field Schools to facilitate agricultural extension and assistance to the trainers in these schools on technical and pedagogical aspects.
• Setting up of a commercial extension group in Tan Lam Company, a local coffee processing and exporting company, to enable continuation of agricultural extension by Tan Lam Company after finishing of the project
• Assistance to local organizations (farmers union, state extension service etc) in the process of adaptation of the official agricultural extension system to the farmer field school approach
• Development of tools for farmers and extension workers to analyze current and alternative agricultural practices to indicate locally adapted, better agricultural practices: e.g. registration of field activities (Field Book), experimentation techniques for alternative cropping practices
• The implementation of coffee quality standards in the Tan Lam Company, the establishment of a monitoring system for environmental aspects of post-harvesting processing
• Implementation of wastewater treatment and biogas technologies at Tan Lam factory to reduce the pollution of waterways
• Development and distribution, locally and nationally, of information on better agricultural practices and on improvement of processing for better quality, mould prevention and wastewater treatment. This information is made available to farmers and processors in the form of handbooks, comic books and videos (both made available through local and national television and through video-CDs.
• The development of infrastructure, such as roads and buildings for health care units, to improve living conditions of farmer families in remote areas.

Quality improvements, after and before (right) introduction of improved fermentation

In due course, it was expected that the project experiences would be disseminated to the national level via Vicofa (the Vietnamese Coffee and Cocoa Association). For the best processing practices, experiences of Tan Lam on e.g. biogas are implemented in other coffee growing areas in Vietnam where the Tan Lam Extension Group acts as the consulting partner to other interested companies and organizations. On other issues this also took off, with TLEG conducting a one-year Training of Trainers for provincial extension staff on a commercial basis. Through the setup of a consulting branch within Tan Lam Company, sustainability of activities and impacts originally introduced by the project are secured after it ended.

Whatever definition of sustainability one looks up, recurring issues are nearly always grouped in three dimensions; “economics, society and environment”. Within this project sustainability could be split up in two interdependent parts: “field and factory” (see Table). Each dimension is illustrated with a macro-example (interested readers are advised to contact the project staff directly to receive more detailed info on quantitative sustainability measurements, see contact details).

Table 1. Sustainability indicators

Dimension	Factory level indicator	Field level indicator
Economic	Tan Lam is placed in the market as a producer of sustainable coffee and receives better prices as a result Indicator: Tan Lam is certified by an independent body (Utz-Kapeh)	Farmers connected to the project perform better than others in the same area in terms of higher yields of better quality and lower production costs per ton of green bean. Farmers also receive part of the Utz-Kapeh sustainability differential.
Social	Additional income of the factory as a result of Utz-Kapeh is partly divided among the workers.	Farmers connected to Tan Lam have more frequent access to better quality information on coffee cultivation.
Environmental	BOD* and COD* of wastewater of Tan Lam factory is 100% lower than that of two other factories in the area	Project farmers have a more balanced fertilization management taking removal of nutrients during harvest into account as a result of daily registration of activities in- and outputs in their coffee garden.

In general, sustainability issues focus on the decrease of environmental pressure from the wet processing line of Tan Lam Company with the introduction and development of locally applicable “Best Processing Practices”. Sustainability on field level centers on a more balanced use of inputs (e.g. fertilizers) and improvement of cherry quality. Such indicators, which may seem rather vague, were tested in a sustainability assessment tool that yielded quantitative data. This data not only supported the issuance of the recently attained Utz-Kapeh certificate, but also fed back into the extension system. In this way, farmers reaped financial benefits from certification and received better field management recommendations. In the project’s experience, the use of quantitative data from sustainability assessments made it possible for farmers and processors to better deal with critical issues.

* BOD & COD: Biological and Chemical Oxygen Demand, indicators of the load of environmental pollution by oxidizing material, such as organic wastes; higher values indicate higher pollution.

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