Emission-reducing coffee production: Don't sit back and wait!

The workshop aimed to share mechanisms, policies and initiatives in the coffee industry toward low-emission production and attract public investment in this field. Besides, consult stakeholders on how to coordinate and integrate resources to promote public-private investment in low-emission coffee production.

Mr. Le Van Duc, Deputy Director of the Department of Crop Production said: Vietnam is one of the countries that provide raw materials for the major coffee industry in the world. Many concentrated coffee production areas have been established in the Central Highlands (94%), partly in the Southeast and Northwest.

Currently, the coffee industry is receiving great attention from state management agencies, associations, businesses, and people... Many plans and schemes to promote development, re-cultivation, coffee landscape coffee, and specialty coffee... have been issued. Thanks to that, Vietnamese coffee has chosen to create varieties with outstanding quality, productivity, and high competitiveness with coffee from other countries in the world.

However, a new requirement for current coffee production is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, so production and consumption activities must be reorganized in chains with the participation of many components (base state management agencies, scientists, international organizations, and enterprises...). This chain of links must be harmoniously organized, and closely coordinated, towards the same goal that does not affect the production efficiency of people, business and export activities of enterprises, and at the same time improve product value, and income and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Ms. Tran Thi Quynh Chi, Director of the Landscape Program for Asia (IDH Organization) shared: Low emission is an indispensable requirement today. Around the world, more than 80% of companies in all industries have committed to reducing emissions and strive to be zero emissions by 2050. Many countries and businesses are actively investing in low-emission agricultural production chains with the ambition to move towards zero emissions. Therefore, as a global organization promoting public-private cooperation in the fields of sustainable development, IDH will not stand aside from that common trend.

According to Ms. Chi, Vietnam is a leading country in efforts with IDH to effectively deploy landscape coffee, build a sustainable coffee development program, etc. Through the models, the results obtained for Vietnam has great potential in reducing emissions in coffee, fruit and pepper production areas in the Central Highlands.

The goal of IDH in the coming time is that by 2025, the project will affect 40-50% of the coffee, pepper and fruit trees in the Central Highlands (more than 300,000 ha). This is a very big goal, if IDH does it alone, it will be very difficult to succeed. Therefore, promoting public-private cooperation is an indispensable requirement for implementation.
“Currently, purchasing enterprises have made specific commitments and roadmaps in the pursuit of emission reduction in the production of goods. Therefore, if we do not implement low-emission projects on the basis of public-private cooperation, in the future, the development trend and market demand will still force us to do so. Instead of waiting, let's take the initiative and prepare in advance," emphasized Ms.

Mr. Mai Van Trinh, Director of the Institute of Agricultural Environment (Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences) said: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions saves 30% of fertilizer, 40% of irrigation water, 80% of labor and electricity. , stable yield, control input, control according to plant needs and growth stage...

Currently, the coffee industry is very much related to the income of people as well as businesses. Therefore, in order to develop this industry, there needs to be synchronization between the government's policies and the activities of enterprises (technology investment in production and processing...) and people.

However, in order to implement synchronously, it is necessary to have clear and transparent policies from state management agencies, which clearly specify the duties, rights and responsibilities of each participant and participant. In addition, there must be a connection to the carbon market, creating incentives to stimulate producers and exporters to promote low-emission production to increase product value, increase income from the exchange of carbon certificates.

At the workshop, the participants all said that: It is necessary to conduct more research projects on reducing emissions in coffee farming as implemented in rice. From there, build a database, emission factor, and a roadmap for carbon certification and certification. In addition, it is necessary to calculate carbon according to the commodity chain, and soon agree on methods, standards and regulations on low emissions...

At the workshop, Department of Crop Production, IDH and GCP signed a memorandum of understanding on low emission coffee production. Accordingly, from 2022 to 2025, the three parties will coordinate to implement the following objectives: Building a monitoring and reporting mechanism for greenhouse gas emissions and handing it over to units in the coffee industry for reference; documenting low-emissions intervention groups in sustainable coffee production guidelines and other relevant documents; Close consultation with the public and private sectors to develop and agree on low emission production targets, and implementation planning with clearer roles and responsibilities for each.

At the same time, promoting low-emission production activities in the field including communication, capacity building, building low-emission production models, technical support and advice to farmers...