Vietnam coffee harvest to speed in late Nov

Vietnamese farmers will speed full-scale coffee harvesting in two weeks, as rains ended after affecting production since late last month, two growers said on Monday.

Vietnamese farmers will speed full-scale coffee harvesting in two weeks, as rains ended after affecting production since late last month, two growers said on Monday.

Rains have slowed the pace of cherry ripening, with as much as 35 percent of the crop so far ready to be picked in Cu Mgar district in Daklak province, while in Krong Nang district only 10 percent of cherries have matured, the two growers told Reuters.

“The harvest has been late this year after storms brought rains to our area, and the yield maybe lower,” said Doan Van Thong, a 54-year-old farmer who grows 4 hectares (10 acres) of coffee in Krong Nang.

He said he expected to harvest nearly 15 tonnes of cherries this year, down from 16 tonnes in the 2009/2010 crop year.

Daklak in the Central Highlands coffee belt produces a third of Vietnam’s total coffee. It has nearly 185,000 hectares of coffee, making up 34.6 percent of the country’s coffee area.

Concern over delays in the harvest and supply problems for December loading from Vietnam, the world’s second-largest producer after Brazil, contributed to lifting London robusta prices to a two-year high early this month.

A sunny day emerged on Monday, encouraging farmers in Daklak and in nearby provinces of Kon Tum and Gia Lai to go out picking cherries after a rainy weekend cause by a tropical low pressure system, residents told Reuters by telephone.

Scattered showers were still expected in some areas in the Central Highlands on Monday, but the low pressure system had disappeared, the national weather centre said in a Monday report.

Rain was likely to persist in the region throughout this month and the rainy season is expected to end in late November, a month later than usual, a state forecaster said last Monday.

Rain does not only prevent farmers from going to their field, but also halts their outdoor drying and could raise the ratio of black beans, counted as a defect in exportable coffee beans, if farmers are forced to dry beans by oven.

Vietnam’s coffee crop year lasts between October and September, starting with the harvest that peaks in late November or early December and ending in January.

Tags: Vietnam agriculture, Vietnam Coffee