Coffee market: Daily news updates: Coffee sector needs more gov't support

The coffee-growing sector is struggling to ensure sustainable development, as many coffee farmers run small-scale operations and lack of funds to improve its operations.
farm families manage about 80 percent of the 500,000 Vietnamese coffee farms have many of them suffer from a shortage of money and are held back by cultural techniques out of date.
These problems are especially severe for coffee farmers in poor areas like the central highlands province of Dak Lak, which is home to many coffee plantations due to the favorable conditions of the growing region.
With 190,700 hectares of coffee plantations, Dak Lak is the coffee capital. However, many farmers are still struggling to escape poverty by growing coffee.
Emap Ea Pok Town Village, 15 km from Buon Ma Thuot city, is home to nearly 400 families, most of which are Ede ethnic people who grow coffee for a living. However, 20 percent of households still live below the poverty line, compared with the national average of 9.45 percent in 2010.
local farmers Ma Khen, 49, said he had enough money to buy fertilizer and water to its 150 coffee trees. Lack of funds has caused enormous suffering Khen low farm productivity, at about 1 ton per acre - half the provincial average rate of productivity.
Khen, a father of nine children, said the VND10 million euros (500 dollars) obtained from coffee last year could not feed his family, so they have taken extra jobs.
"Before I took out a bank loan of VND9 million ($ 450) and paid back after a year, but this time with the farm going wrong, can not afford to take out another loan," he said.
"I'm afraid it will not be able to repay the money."
H Run Knul, 50, said his family has 0.24ha in the cultivation of coffee, but only harvested kilos past 120 years, winning VND4.8 million ($ 240).
"I have no money to raise new trees," he said.
And farmers Nie Prum said he spent about VND20 million euros (1,000 dollars) to buy fertilizers and ensure water supply for its coffee plantations of 1 ha. Made a profit of VND70 billion euros (3,500 dollars) for the sale of 2.5 tons of coffee beans.
Nguyen Anh Tuan, Cu Mgar Department official District ethnic minorities, said the government policies to support ethnic minority people who provide housing assistance, education and agriculture.
The ethnic households in disadvantaged areas could obtain interest-free loans each worth VND5 million ($ 250) for a period of 5 years, he said.
Agriculture official Ea Pok People's Committee of Vinh City Nguyen Huu said that poor farming households usually borrow money from the dealers to cover the costs of cultivation and then pay merchants with their products.
"The price of coffee is established under agreements between farmers and traders, where coffee crops have been harvested yet," he said.
The agreed prices, in many cases, were only half the market price, but farmers could not do much to get better deals, he said.
Moreover, farmers usually harvest their coffee all at the same time, regardless of whether some coffee beans were ripe or not.
"They continue this habit to save labor and keep your coffee is stolen, but the Farmers' Association regularly provides a guide to better farming methods and skills," said Vinh.
Viet Nam Coffee-Cacao Association President Luong Van Tu, said the selection of green coffee beans reduces the quality and quantity of the harvest as green beans were lighter than the mature and the smell was not as strong as those of ripe coffee beans.
The association encourages farmers to harvest their crops and recommended a more selective processing companies to offer higher prices for grains mature, he said.
"Companies must purchase coffee directly from producers to control the quality of coffee beans instead of through distributors, or require dealers to have a better understanding of coffee, and not focus solely on prices," said.
About 80 percent of coffee producers in Viet Nam to take care of less than 1 hectare each. These farmers could benefit greatly if they work together to establish internal facilities, including machinery for processing coffee beans to improve their products, he said.
Nguyen Tri Ngoc, director of the Department of Culture, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, noted as one of the main crops, coffee benefited from government policies that support farmers with preferential credits and technology to ensure productivity average of 2 tons per hectare.
Each locality is detailed planning and design incentives to local borrowers, he said.
In particular, a public-private pilot project on sustainable coffee production has been carried out in the province of Dak Lak, in which government and various economic sectors came together to support the producers said.
Ngoc said he expects the project to extend Emap's people in the future.