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Coffee seedlings nipped in the bud with no buyers
The recent price drop and falling demand have left coffee seedling farmers them no other choice but to destroy their seedlings.
Le Ba Hao, owner of a coffee nursery in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak, is about to destroy about 100,000 seedlings because there is no one to buy them.
Hao’s predicament is shared by many coffee growers in the province, the nation’s premier coffee growing region.
The trend to plant new coffee trees in Dak Lak and other neighboring provinces last year pushed seedling prices up to about VND10,000 per seedling, prompting large numbers of people to start growing them since early this year. Some of them even planted seedlings in their yards.
Hao says seedling farmers made good profits last year but now many of them are incurring great losses.
Farmers will lose VND10 million (US$600) for every 10,000 coffee seedlings left unsold, he says, noting many farmers are keeping about 50,000-70,000 seedlings.
The oversupply has led to a critical price drop, from VND1,800-4,000 per seedling in June to only VND200-1,000 per seedling last month. Meanwhile, the cost to grow a seedling is already VND800-2,500.
Le Duc Tien, director of a company that sells seedlings in Dak Lak Province, says the supply this year has far exceeded the demand as the Central Highlands provinces have stopped expanding their coffee growing areas.
It is hard to monitor the quality of the seedlings in the province, he says, adding that seedlings are grown from seeds of unknown origin.
Tien says it could take several years before coffee farmers find out that they have bought bad seedlings.
A seedling grower in Buon Ma Thuot Town, who wishes to be unnamed, says there are no regulations about growing seedlings and no inspections carried out to test their quality.
Thanhnien
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