Dak Lak is granted with much potential for agricultural development, which has been exploited effectively for the past time with agricultural product value’s proportion of approximately 46 percent in the provincial GDP and the agricultural export turnover accounting for over 90 percent of the provincial annual export turnover. Promoting this advantage, the province is currently concentrating on developing staple crops.
Most of provincial export turnover comes from agricultural products such as coffee, rubber, cashew and pepper, accounting about 95 – 97 percent; and the others including honey, processed wood and cassava starch making up 3-5 percent. Thus, the crucial role of these industrial trees in the local annual export turnover has been confirmed.
To make a new breakthrough in agricultural development, in the coming time, Dak Lak will concentrate on development of staple crops in compliance with its plan, aiming at increasing value added products. Particularly, for coffee, Dak Lak has the largest coffee area of over 200,000 ha, with the average yield of over 400,000 tonnes per year and coffee export value accounting for more than 80 percent of the provincial agricultural product export turnover. Coffee is regarded as Dak Lak’s staple product, having direct impacts on most local residents. Sustainable coffee development is coupled with the provincial economic development as well as social-political stability.
Director Trang Quang Thanh of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said that at present and in the coming years, coffee will still play an important role in Dak Lak’s economy. Thus, the Provincial Committee issued Resolution 08-NQ/TU dated May 5th 2008 on “Coffee sustainable development in new period”. Following the Resolution, the Provincial People’s Council introduced Resolution 22/2008/NQ-HDND dated October 8th 2008 on coffee sustainable development to 2015 and orientation to 2020. The Provincial People’s Committee directed and promulgated the Decision approving the Proposal for coffee sustainable development to 2015 and orientation to 2020 for implementation arrangement. In particular, the coffee area will be maintained stably at 150,000 – 160,000 ha with average yield of 400,000 tonnes per annual crop. Besides, the province will hold training courses on modern production techniques and business of coffee for about 8,000 farmers a year; adopt Vietnamese Standard TCVN 4193:2005 on at least 60 percent of coffee production for export; contribute to the dissemination of the general principles for 4C coffee community, UTZ set of standards and other modern ones; increase the proportion of processing powder and instant coffee to 15 percent in the whole annual crop production; have 30 percent of the production traded through Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Exchange Centre; beat the target of annual export turnover at about US$700 million; and create about 500,000 jobs.
For rubber, the provincial orientation is to focus on investment into intensive farming and only expand the area in accordance with the plan. It is expected that the rubber area will reach 41,500 ha by 2015 and 50,000 ha by 2020. Areas where cashew cannot develop well will be used for other crops. By 2015 the cashew area will be maintained at 25,000 ha and 27,950 ha by 2020.
At present, cocoa is considered a potential crop which is included in the provincial crop restructuring. Therefore, the province targets to increase the cocoa area to 6,000 ha by 2015 and to 8,000 ha by 2020. Perennial fruit trees with high value such as avocado (of the main and off-season crops), flake seed durian, jackfruit (for export) will have their areas expanded to 10,000 – 20,000 ha and expectedly 21,000 ha by 2020.
Mr Thanh said that appropriate zone selection, correct focus in investment and reasonable area and scale for development will create a driving force for development of staple crops in particular and agricultural production in general; encourage the consensus, enthusiasm and feeling of being guaranteed production among farmers, helping to promote Dak Lak agriculture, farmer and rural area on the agenda of industrialization – modernization and international integration.
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