Drought in Vietnam will cut production of coffee and other crops, as coffee prices continue to rise

Vietnam has suffered its worst drought in nearly a century due to El Ni ñ o weather, which has dealt a severe blow to the agricultural industry in the Mekong Delta, mainly in central and southern Vietnam, Xinhua reported.

According to the statistics of Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture, the water level of the Mekong River, the longest river in Southeast Asia, has dropped seriously, breaking the lowest record since 1926, resulting in serious drought and land salinization. This has also caused nearly a million local people to lack daily water, and the agricultural industry has suffered the most. At present, 160000 hectares of cultivated land has been affected, but according to local estimates, 500000 hectares may be affected in the future. And in the Mekong Delta about 2.2 million hectares of arable land, 40% of the land area is salinized, which will seriously affect the growth of crops, resulting in physiological drought and even death of plants.

According to rainfall monitoring, in the last month (February 14 to March 15), there was almost no rain in areas near the Mekong River Basin, such as Laos, Cambodia and south-central Vietnam, and the temperature was 1-3 ℃ higher than the same period last year. These areas mainly grow coffee trees, rice and other crops, which have a great demand for water, making the drought more and more serious. And, under the influence of El Ni ñ o, the rainy season in these areas will be delayed. According to the latest weather forecast, El Ni ñ o will end around April, after which the drought will be alleviated.

However, Vietnam's main crops rice, coffee, pepper and rubber are basically grown in the central and southern regions of the country. As a result, Vietnam has suffered huge losses. according to the latest research results released by the Vietnam Institute of Water Resources Science, due to drought and the rise of salty water levels, the related losses in the affected areas are estimated to reach 16.6 trillion dong. However, the coffee crop is currently in flowering season, and drought will affect flowering and the lack of adequate nutrition will make it difficult to bear fruit, which will affect the final yield, so it is finally predicted that this drought, crop losses across Viet Nam could reach 7 billion dong.

Moreover, at present, prices have been rising due to the shortage of Robusta inventory. at present, the spot price of robusta coffee in Vietnam is as high as 92 million to 95 million dong / ton, more than double that of the same period in 2023, which has also caused chaos in the Vietnamese coffee export market. In addition, Vietnamese coffee is also affected by durian, dragon fruit and other fruit crops. Due to the increasing demand in China in the past two years, many farmers have turned to planting durian, dragon fruit and other fruits, resulting in a reduction in the planting area of Vietnamese coffee. In this regard, industry insiders said that if the production reduction is serious, the price of Robusta may continue to rise in the future, which may exceed 100 million dong / ton.

At present, the good news points out that apart from the fact that El Ni ñ o is about to end in April, the Vietnamese government has made a request to China to open the sluice gates of hydropower stations in the upper Mekong River, that is, the Lancang River region in Yunnan Province, to ease the drought. At the request of Vietnam, the Chinese government recently decided to launch a hydropower station to provide emergency water supply downstream for 27 days to alleviate the drought in downstream countries Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.