Vietnam to produce more coffee with less water

Towards a reduction of the blue water footprint in coffee production

CountryVietnam, Central Highlands

PartnersNestlé, Hanns R. Neumann

Stiftung, Ministry of Agricul-

ture & Rural Development

& Provincial Departments,

Neuchatel University, Inter-

national Water Management

Institute IWMI,

Hanoi University of Science

Background informationCoffee is one of the primary

agricultural products

traded in the world and is

a commodity of outstanding

significance for

producing regions. Coffee

production in Vietnam has

a significant impact on

water resources.

Project objectives• Identify water scarcity

hotspots and imple-

ment action plans

• Optimise water ma-

nagement on farm via

weather forecasting

system

• 50,000 farmers trained

adopt good water ma-

nagement practices

Target groups50,000 of the poorer and

marginalised smallholder

coffee farmers.

CostsTotal: CHF 940’000

SDC: CHF 510’000

Duration01.2018 – 12.2019

Vietnam is the second largest coffee producer in the world and a leading robusta coffee ex-porter. The country has the world’s highest cof-fee yields, which puts it in the centre of the glo-bal coffee market as demand keeps increasing. Coffee is the most important export product in terms of value for Vietnam; coffee production supports the rural livelihoods of over 2 million people, mainly in the Central Highlands. Export volumes peaked at circa 30 million bags in 2016, generating revenues of over USD 3 billion.

In order to make coffee farming an economically vi-able livelihood activity, water for irrigation is a pre-condition to achieve yields that average 2.4 million tonnes per ha. However, people living in the Central Highlands of Vietnam are increasingly facing chal-lenges linked to droughts and extreme water shor-tages. These threaten agricultural production, which not only affects community life, but also weakens the local economy.

Aggravating this situation is the absence of syste-matic water resources monitoring, which makes it impossible to provide information on the condition of water resources, and recommend a course of ac-tion on water resources management for the region.

Against this background, the project “More coffee with less water – towards a reduction of the blue water footprint in coffee production” was designed and launched in July 2014. This is a partnership bet-ween Nestlé/Nescafé and the Swiss Agency for De-velopment and Cooperation (SDC). The project goal is to ensure equitable and sufficient water availabili-ty for all water users in the Central Highlands, while improving livelihoods and protecting the environ-ment by reducing the water used in coffee irrigation.

After an external project evaluation (August 2017), it was decided to orient the project’s scope of action towards (i) policy formulation based on the lessons learnt in phase 1 of the project and (ii) scaling up project approaches.The new project design incorporates three different strategies: (i) creating evidence, information and

practical guidance based on applied research (Out-come 1 & 2), (ii) proof of concept: capacity-building based on best practice irrigation management and Good Agricultural Practices (Outcome 3), and (iii) influencing (inter)national stakeholders to ensu-re policy debate on water use efficiency in coffee production (Outcome 4) and upscaling of impact in cooperation with other public and private partners as an exit strategy.

Phase 2 of the project will run from January 2018 until December 2019, targeting 15,000 farmer be-neficiaries as well as national policy-makers at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and public and private players in the coffee sector. For Outcome 4 a partnership with the Vietnam Coffee Coordination Board (VCCB) and Global Coffee Plat-form (GCP) was established.

--------------------------Additional information: More coffee less water - movie:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Bnu8lsbCM