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A coffee enthusiast fascinated with its origins, Cal State Fullerton assistant professor of anthropology Sarah Grant became intrigued with the Vietnamese coffee industry after researching its history. Her interest in the Vietnamese coffee industry and the obstacles facing coffee farmers in the country has led her to 10 years of research in the topic. “Ultimately my research isn’t just about the coffee -- it’s about Vietnamese in coffee-producing regions grappling with loss, opportunity, ambition, rapid economic development and subsequent stagnation and dreams about the future,” said Grant, who specializes in economic anthropology.

HCM CITY (VNS) — Despite some encouraging results, Viet Nam's cocoa sector has not enjoyed stable development in the past decade, a review meeting heard in HCM City yesterday. Nguyen Van Hoa, deputy head of the Crop Production Department, said in the past years annual output had been 5,000-6,000 tonnes of cocoa beans. Farming models intercropping cocoa with coconut or cashew had offered high yields, he said. Companies had done research to come up with cocoa-based products and use cocoa shells to grow mushroom or turn them into fertiliser, he said.

Vietnamese coffee exporters are not shipping fresh stock this week as they face tight supply due to dry weather prevailing in the country, traders said on Tuesday. The dry season in Vietnam, the world's top robusta producer, has started peaking in the Central Highlands coffee belt, requiring growers to step up the watering of trees.  Traders said many growers were not selling their produce because domestic prices did not improve much from late February, when a kg of robusta was 29,300-29,500 dong ($1.3), the lowest since mid-November 2013. On Tuesday, robustas stood at 30,700-31,100 dong/kg in Daklak, the country's main coffee-growing province, up from 30,700-30,900 dong last Thursday, but which were still down from early last week. 

VIET NAM - The National TET holiday for the Lunar New Year officially seems to last about 10 days from February 4th to February 14th. However, the business was slowed down a week before and after the official holidays. Many company internal business meetings will take place after the New Year holiday to make their plans for the coming year, write Paul Anderson and Meggie Vo.

Professor Le Huy Ham, director general of the Agricultural Genetics Institute in Ha Noi, talks about the potential of cassava, Viet Nam's third most important export crop throughout the last decade. In Viet Nam in recent years, cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is in growing demand as an industrial and food crop. The export value of cassava is about US$1.3-1.5 billion annually, making cassava Viet Nam's third largest export crop, after rice and coffee.

Vietnam’s roadmap for integration via free trade agreements is boosting the export of its traditional products. With its advantage of being the coconut growing land, Ben Tre is facing opportunities to promote coconut products. Many local businesses have been investing in organic products for consumers’ health, along with the commitment to accompany farmers through comprehensive support policies and close cooperation models for sustainable development

 In 1974, Vietnam deployed a group of its young people to come to Tanzania, and learn how to make cashew nut seedling from some of the Tanzania agricultural research institutes, one of them being the Naliendele Agricultural Research Institute in Mtwara. At Naliendele, they were taught how to make seedling and on how to plant cashew nut crop-which is one of the traditional crops in Mtwara and other regions along the Indian Ocean.

South Korea’s CJ Group will invest US$500 million (Bt17.5 billion) in the three key Vietnamese sectors of agriculture, entertainment and logistics in 2016. The company's total investment in the country over the past 20 years was $400 million. It will increase its investment in agriculture through mergers and acquisitions and basic investment in the value chain.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development affirmed that Vietnam has not permitted import of soil into the country after the General Department of Vietnam Customs sent a dispatch to the ministry proposing to allow and guide soil import. Previously, the general department received a document from Hai Phong City’s Custom Department reporting problems on import and quarantine procedures to soils including clay, kaolin clay and bentonite clay that have been burned. 

Water shortages will "seriously affect" Vietnam's robusta crop, the country's coffee body said. The Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association (Vicofa) warned of dry weather in country's central highlands, the main coffee growing region in the world's top robusta producers. River levels will be 60-80% below average in the first four months of 2016, and 30-50% down in the May-June period, Vicofa warned.

The Dak Lak Province administration has fired shots at Trung Nguyen Group, Vietnam’s top coffee processor, for sluggish progress on a string of tourism projects in the Central Highlands province. Trung Nguyen, which runs Vietnam's biggest chain of coffee houses, must speed up progress to finish five tardy projects in order to meet deadlines or risk having their licenses revoked, according to an ultimatum from the provincial administration.

HANOI - Vietnam's coffee premiums held steady, with farmers slowing sales on concerns over dry weather affecting output, while domestic buying and thin stocks in Indonesia helped to raise outright prices, traders said on Thursday. The dry season in Vietnam, the world's top robusta producer, is peaking, with water shortages forecast to cut 2016/2017 output. Rival producer Indonesia has low stocks, which has helped to push up export price quotations to a 15-month high.

Vietnam’s cocoa sector should aim its sights at the premium chocolate market, the director of the Internatioanl Cocoa Organisation’s (ICCO) economics and statistics division has urged. Speaking at the second Cocoa Revolution conference held in HCM City yesterday, Laurent Pipitone said that an ICCO panel of experts on Fine Flavour Cocoa recommended that Vietnam’s cocoa production be considered as having a fine flavor cocoa origin.

HÀ NỘI (VNS) — The local market has seen some of the most attractive shares offered in initial public offerings (IPOs) in March. Since the beginning of this year, 20 local companies have launched their IPOs. In particular, the shares of well-known companies with good growth potential, such as the Viet Nam Meat Industries Limited Company (Vissan) and Cholimex in the food industry, attracted many investors on the HCM Stock Exchange (HoSE).

HA NOI (VNS) — Vietnamese and Japanese researchers from the Ha Noi-based University of Science and Technology, Rubber Research Institute of Viet Nam and Nagaoka University of Technology have collaborated to develop an environment-friendly and sophisticatedly deproteinised natural rubber. "Allergy is one of the serious problems using natural rubber gloves. We can solve this problem," Professor Masao Fukuda from Nagaoka University of Technology said at a symposium today in Ha Noi.

Vietnam has been warned that it would be outstripped by Thailand and Cambodia in rice exports if it cannot change the current production and export policies. The country has just begun exporting rice to China recently, but it has gained very high export growth rate. Cambodia exported 116,000 tons of rice to the market in 2015, an increase of 138 percent compared to 2014. Meanwhile, the threat from Thailand seems to be worse as the country plans to apply a new rice strategy, while it considers diverting Loei, a branch of Mekong River, to bring water to agricultural areas in the country’s northeastern part.