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Removing obstacles to perfect VnSAT program

For many farmers and cooperatives in Gia Lai province, the Vietnam Sustainable Agriculture Transformation Project (VnSAT) has brought great benefits to the coffee industry. As part of the program, farmers and cooperatives’ members were not only trained on producing and replanting new coffee trees in a sustainable ways but they also received funds to install water-saving irrigation systems, building drying grounds, warehouses and inter-field roads.

However apart from the achieved results, many cooperatives have also realized a number of obstacles of the program that should be removed.

Removing obstacles to perfect VnSAT program

VnSAT program is considered leverage for sustainable development of the coffee industry. Photo: Tuan Anh.

Nguyen Tan Duy, Director of Phuong Hoang Construction-Commerce and Service Cooperative (Duc Co district) said the cooperative now has 324 members and 530 hectares of coffee tree. Over the past two years, VnSAT has provided great assistance to its members, from training courses on replacing old coffee trees to the installation of water-saving irrigation systems. Especially, with the funds from the project, two inter-commune road systems including one connecting the two communes of Krieng and Ia Kel with a length of 5.2km and one connecting Ia Lang commune with Chu Ty town with a length of 6km have been under construction. The total investment capital for the two roads was VND25.6 billion. In which, VnSAT project provided 100% funding for the construction and the local people offered land for the roads. However the progress of the construction has been slow so far, thus it has affected coffee harvest this year to a certain extents.

Duy said because the construction of inter-field road system was under the management of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development the licensing and registration procedure needed to be approved from the Central and it was a time consuming process. Despite that, VnSAT Project Board was especially enthusiastic, as sending staff from Hanoi to the area to guide on the licensing procedure to accelerate the progress of construction.

However, due to the complex situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, the progress of construction was slow down. Otherwise, the inter-field road connecting Krieng and Ia Kel communes could have been completed.

 “VnSAT program is considered as leverage for sustainable development of the coffee industry. Under the program, the State invested almost 100% for the people which has created favorable conditions for coffee production. We are now hoping that the approved inter-field road projects will be under construction and put into operation as soon as possible,” said Duy.

At present, the old inter-field roads leading to the local coffee-growing area are seriously degraded so the local people are looking forward to the new roads.

In another aspect, many members of Phuong Hoang Cooperative are now facing difficulties as they can’t access credit loans sponsored by VnSAT program to replant new coffee trees.

With loans from the VnSAT program, the cooperative’s members can replace old coffee trees in the near future. Because of preferential interest rate many people have been very interested in this loan package.  More importantly, when farmers could access loans they would daringly replant new coffee trees, thereby taking advantage of high-quality and high-yield varieties.

Also according to Duy, one hectare of replanted coffee trees required more than VND 100 million for the first year and VND50 million for the next year. This was a huge amount of money for many small-scale farmers. Therefore, it’s not easy to replant new coffee trees.

According to Thanh, if VnSAT program could be extended it would bring huge benefits to the cooperative' members. Photo: Tuan Anh.

Ia Mo Nong Agricultural and Tourism Production - Trade - Service Cooperative (Chu Pah district) was one of the unit receiving considerable assistance from VnSAT program over the past time. Le Van Thanh, Director of Ia Mo Nong Cooperative said although the VnSAT has been implemented since 2015 it was not until 2019 when the program nearly came to an end that the cooperative could participate. If the VnSAT program could be extended it would bring huge benefits to the members of the cooperative.

Many people have now told the cooperative that they wanted to get assistance from VnSAT program to install efficient irrigation systems. However, the investment component in this field has expired, making many farmers feel too much regret.

According to Thanh, one of the difficulties was that coffee farmers struggle to access high quality plants. Coffee seedlings on market were mostly from uncontrollable sources.

 “We may know if coffee seedlings are of poor quality after planting for only two or three months. However, sometimes it can take few years to know and it will be too late. That will be a millions or billions of dongs’ worth of investment down the drain,” Thanh said.

Many cooperatives proposed a removal of obstacles to coffee seedling management. Photo: Tuan Anh.

Besides, despite many training courses on sustainable coffee production organized by VnSAT program there remains the problems of the process of growing and caring coffee trees to be resolved.

With the obstacles mentioned above, Thanh suggested that the State and the VnSAT program need to strictly control coffee seedlings to ensure quality and yields. In addition it’s necessary to train farmers on how to grow and take care of coffee trees to obtain high quality.


Le Quoc Tuan, Deputy Director of VnSAT Gia Lai Project Management Board said all the goals set by the project have been achieved as expected. Only the sub-projects of inter-field roads are still under construction but they are ensured to be on schedule.

“Cooperatives need to link up with farming households to promote sustainable coffee production as trained by the VnSAT program. Besides, coffee enterprises are now requiring over 80% of ripe coffee cherries to be harvested which makes it difficult for farmers to meet the standards. In the face of the issue, the VnSAT program has assisted the cooperatives in installing color sorters to ensure quality,” Tuan said.


Author: Tuan Anh

Translated by Mai Tham

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