Coffee

Vietnam’s coffee exports in the first four months of the year likely down 17.6% from a year earlier to 563,000 tonnes, while rice exports likely down 10.8%, government data released on Thursday showed.

Coffee

Coffee exports from Vietnam are expected to drop an estimated 17.6% in the first four months of this year from a year earlier to 563,000 tonnes, equal to 9.38 million 60-kg bags, the General Statistics Office (GSO) said on Thursday.

Coffee export revenue for Vietnam, the world’s biggest producer of the robusta bean, will likely fall 11.6% from a year earlier to $1.02 billion in the four-month period.

The country’s coffee shipments in April are estimated at 110,000 tonnes, valued at $209 million.

Rice

Rice exports in January-April are forecast to drop 10.8% from a year earlier to 1.89 million tonnes.

Revenue from rice exports in the period is expected to increase 1.2% from a year earlier to $1.01 billion.

April rice exports from Vietnam, likely totalled 700,000 tonnes, worth $362 million.

Engery

Vietnam’s January-April crude oil exports were seen falling 38.5% from the same period last year to an estimated 1.05 million tonnes.

Crude oil export revenue in the period is expected to dive 16.7% from a year earlier to $487 million.

Oil product imports in the four months were estimated at 2.4 million tonnes, down 46.4% from the same period last year, while the value of product imports decreased 38.7% to $143.3 million.

The GSO trade data is subject to revision next month.

The museum, inaugurated in late 2018, can be found on Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street in Buon Ma Thuot City, the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak.

The primary design of the building is based on the Nha Dai (long house) architecture of the Ede ethnic group that reside across the Central Highlands.

The world coffee museum, the first of its kind in Vietnam, consists of open spaces specifically for exhibiting artifacts, photos, coffee tasting, and organising seminars.

A special space is set up for visitors to sample coffee of various varieties from across the world.

A photo exhibition aims to help guests gain greater insights into the history, culture, and development of the coffee industry, both locally and globally.

The design of the museum seeks to receive light from outside, leaving a positive impression on tourists.

The space within the museum has been designed in a way that is close to nature.

The architectural style of the various ethnic groups who reside in the Central Highlands region is highly impressive for visitors.

Numerous musical instruments of ethnic groups, including the Gong, can be seen on display at the museum.

Among the 10,000 items on show at the museum, many date back to the 19th and 20th centuries.

Historic Vietnamese coffee processing tools are also on display in the building.

In the photo are ancient tools used to process coffee originating from Ethiopia.

A coffee sorting machine manufactured in Germany in 1930.

A collection of pots and kettles made using ceramic and glass go on show.

The ancient, intricately designed products on display impress viewers.

An interactive area allows visitors to fully experience the local coffee culture.

An overview of the world coffee museum as seen from above.

VOV

The competition was first held in Brazil in 2001, when coffee prices hit historic lows, only $41.5 cents per pound. At that time, the production cost was $70-80 cents, the farmer life became more difficult as they carried on.

In such situation, farmers limited activities such as fertilization, or land reclamation to cut costs, or shorten the time of costly harvesting operations. Those jobs in turn led to poor quality of coffee beans, making the producers’ income even less, creating a vicious cycle. Low coffee prices make the coffee market less attractive, and farmers would eventually quit farming and cultivating other agricultural products.

Realizing the rising danger, UCC Group has made efforts to improve the quality and price of coffee beans through the annual UCC Coffee Quality Contest. Till now, the competition has been going on for 20 consecutive years in 6 countries around the world and this year is the 7th in Vietnam.

The 7th UCC Coffee Quality Contest in Vietnam

As the second largest coffee exporter in the world, Vietnam is also one of the countries with “gold” resources, suitable for growing rare Arabica coffee varieties that the world needs.

To help farmers have the opportunity to learn from each other as well as improve the quality of coffee which meets international standards, UCC Group has organized the Coffee Quality Contest in Vietnam. This year’s competition with strict standards, in addition to assessing the quality of delicious coffee beans, UCC also aims at the criteria of sustainability in the farming process.

When participating in the contest, farmers always make great efforts to achieve high rankings. Since then, the coffee quality and farmers’ income have also been significantly improved, creating an incentive for farmers to continue pursuing coffee cultivation.

Farmers attend this year’s coffee quality contest online awards ceremony

In addition, through the contest, UCC Group aspires to build a win-win relationship and long-term cooperation in purchasing high quality coffee in a stable manner, working together to achieve criteria of SGDs (sustainable development goals).

In Vietnam, UCC always develop different types of coffee and brews that are suitable for each of our customers. No need to go far, you can enjoy typical Japanese coffee in the place where you live. More specifically, UCC is an invisible rope connect better working relationships in the present and the future, in Vietnam and around the world.

PV

Dang Le Nguyen Vu, chairman and CEO of the group, will get 59.1 percent of the combined assets of VND7.93 trillion ($345 million), while his ex-wife Le Hoang Diep Thao gets the remaining 40.9 percent, the Supreme People’s Court has ordered. This is the final order in this case and no further appeal is possible.

Seventy-one percent of the assets are shares in Trung Nguyen – a leading coffee producer in Vietnam established 25 years ago – while the rest is mostly in cash and property.

The court ruled that the total value of the shares, estimated at VND5.65 trillion, be split 60:40 in Vu’s favor and that he would retain his management of Trung Nguyen after purchasing all of Thao’s shares.

Thao gets all the cash holdings worth VND1.55 trillion.

Of the 13 properties worth VND726 billion that the two own together, Vu gets six and Thao seven.

Thao will be in charge of taking care of their four children, for each Vu must provide VND10 billion a year from 2013 until they graduate from college.

Vu, 49, and Thao, 47, married in 1998. The marriage ran into trouble in 2013 and Thao filed for divorce in 2015.

Thao had previously proposed that she gets 51 percent of Trung Nguyen Investment, a company which owns the majority of shares of Trung Nguyen Group.

She had also proposed that Vu and her each own 15 percent (VND814 billion, $35 million) of the Trung Nguyen Group and 7.5 percent (VND43 billion, $1.85 million) of Trung Nguyen Instant Coffee. Thao agreed to give Vu her shares in four other companies under the Trung Nguyen brand.

But Vu wanted 70 percent of all the companies under the Trung Nguyen brand; and to buy the remaining shares from Thao with cash.

Harvesting the 2020-21 winter-spring rice in Tiền Giang Province’s Gò Công Đông District. — VNA/VNS Photo Minh Trí

TIỀN GIANG — The Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Tiền Giang will grow only two rice crops a year in coastal districts and Gò Công Town to mitigate the impact of saltwater intrusion and drought.

Nguyễn Văn Mẫn, director of the province’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that the coastal districts of Gò Công Đông, Gò Công Tây and Tân Phú Đông, and Gò Công Town will grow only winter-spring rice and summer-autumn rice, and no longer grow autumn-winter rice.

In the autumn-winter crop, the coastal districts and Gò Công Town will grow other short-term crops resistant to saltwater intrusion and drought.

In 2021-25, the districts and Gò Công Town will also convert 3,290ha of rice fields in areas without access to irrigation water resources to fields growing crops like vegetables, fruits, perennial trees, and grasses for feeding animals.

To provide support for these changes, the province has completed various construction projects, transferred intensive-farming techniques, and expanded new effective farming models that adapt to climate change.

Farmers have been encouraged to use advanced techniques like “three increases-three reductions” and “one must and five reductions” in rice cultivation, and grow rice and other crops under Vietnamese or global agricultural practices (VietGAP or Global GAP) standards.

The “three increase-three reductions” technique reduces the use of seedlings, fertilisers and plant-protection chemicals in an aim to improve productivity, quality and efficiency.

The “one must and five reductions” technique refers to the use of certified seeds and reduction in plant-protection chemicals, nitrogenous fertilisers, irrigation, seedlings and post-harvest losses.

The province also plans to build more transport and irrigation projects to serve production and transport of farm produce. It will set up specific cultivation schedules for rice and other crops in order to use water efficiently and prevent pollution.

Tiền Giang is one of the delta’s coastal provinces most severely impacted by climate change, especially saltwater intrusion in the dry season.

Success with new crops

Mẫn said to cope with climate change and natural disasters, the province since 2016 has reduced rice cultivation and restructured crops in the coastal districts of Gò Công Đông, Gò Công Tây and Tân Phú Đông, and Gò Công Town.

In 2016-20, the province restructured crop cultivation on more than 32,500ha of rice fields, which was 57 per cent higher than the province’s target set for the period.

Of the 32,500ha of rice fields, nearly 5,500ha no longer grow summer-autumn rice, and nearly 21,000ha stopped autumn-winter rice cultivation. About 6,000ha no longer grow rice and instead grow other high-value short-term crops and perennial trees.

Compared to rice growing, the profit from growing perennial trees has been two times higher than rice and profit from vegetables three times higher, according to the department.

Đặng Anh Phương in Gò Công Đông District’s Phước Trung Commune turned his 5,000sq.m rice field in a coastal area into a lime orchard and now earns an income of VNĐ30 million (US$1,300) a month from selling harvested limes.

“The profit is about 10 times higher than from growing high-quality rice,” he said.

VnSAT Tiền Giang

The Việt Nam-Sustainable Agriculture Transformation (VnSAT) project in Tiền Giang Province (VnSAT Tiền Giang) since 2015 has helped rice farmers increase income by 34 per cent, according to VnSAT Tiền Giang’s management board.

Phạm Văn Trọng, deputy chairman of the province’s People’s Committee, said that VnSAT Tiền Giang helped rice farmers apply advanced technologies and protect the rural environment.

VnSAT Tiền Giang, which has an investment of $12.38 million, is being implemented on a total area of 27,200ha of rice with the participation of 41,015 farming households in the province’s flood-prone districts of Cái Bè and Cai Lậy and Cai Lậy Town in the 2015-21 period.

It has provided advanced rice farming techniques called “three increase-three reductions” and “one must and five reductions” to more than 108,000 farmers to improve production efficiency, and has instructed farmers in how to apply good agricultural practices standards.

It has also upgraded eight rural roads with a total length of 19 kilometres, and built six rural bridges, 10 water regulation sluices, four water regulation sluices with pumping stations, seven warehouses, and four rice dryer houses.

Under VnSAT Tiền Giang, farmers have applied “three increase-three reductions” on more than 17,000ha and “one must and five reductions” on more than 8,200ha, exceeding the project’s targets for the 2015-21 period.

Under VnSAT Tiền Giang, the province has established 19 agriculture co-operatives and one co-operative group. Of these, 16 agriculture co-operatives have farm contracts with rice companies to grow rice on large-scale rice fields.

This year, VnSAT Tiền Giang will organise 36 courses to train more farmers in “three increase-three reductions” and “one must and five reductions”, and build 10 agriculture infrastructure works at a total cost of VNĐ95.5 billion ($4.1 million).

The VnSAT Project is being implemented in all five provinces in the Tây Nguyên (Central Highlands) region and eight provinces in the Mekong (Cửu Long) Delta by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in co-operation with relevant ministries and the World Bank.

The project aims to enhance the competitiveness of the agricultural sector, especially rice and coffee cultivation, improve farmers’ incomes, and reduce adverse impact on the environment. — VNS