Company : Sara Lee's DE Foundation, Nestle, Kraft Foods.
Groups : German International Cooperation (GIZ); Dutch Ministry of Agriculture.
The rapid expansion of coffee in Vietnam brought a lot pof socio-economic benefits, but also led to serious problems such as deforestation, depletion of water resources due to over-irrigation and an increase of social tension between resident ethnic minorities and newly arrived coffee farmers. While the acreage under coffee expanded rapidly the development of training, financial and processing infrastructure could not keep up. Various problems ensued of which indebtedness of farmers and fluctuating coffee quality are a few prominent ones.
To alleviate sustainability issues in the Vietnamese coffee sector, three different pilot projects were conducetd in the past years by the DE Foundation, Nestle, Kraft Foods and the German International Cooperation (GIZ). After a successful evaluation by Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the projct partnered with what was then called the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality to help MARD design a coffee sector development strategy. To implement this project Vice-Minister of MARD, Dr. Diep Kinh Tan, formed a taskforce, chaired by MARD, with representatives from various ministries that have a say on coffee, industry experts, scientists, farmers and members of the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association (VICOFA, an exporters' body).
The project activities included:
- Studies on certification and sector organisation;
- 2 stakeholder workshops; and
- Documents and finalisation of sector strategy
As a results, a common agreement was found on the major areas of improvement that are needed to enhance the sustainability of the coffee sector in Vietnam, such as the needs to:
- Organise coffee producers to reap benefits of economies of scale;
- Improve consistency of coffee quality;
- Increase sectoral coordination and competitiveness.
A widely accepted coffee sector development strategy is available. Within that framework coffee sector stakeholders increasingly try to cooperate on common issues. Underpinning this nascent cooperation is the fact that MARD is using the sector strategy as a guideline for new coffee sector initiatives and the allocation of funding.