Farmers harvest coffee in Dak Lak province. (Photo: VNA)
Lam Dong province is the locality leading the country in agricultural production using advanced technology across over 40,000 hectares, accounting for 15% of its agricultural production area. Dak Nong, Kon Tum and Dak Lak provinces have carried out agricultural production models using advanced technology, bringing high economic efficiency, thus raising farmers’ income.
Plantation is the main sector in agricultural production in the Central Highlands. Since 2011, the Central Highlands has exploited completely the potential in land, climate and production experience to expand plantation, especially annual and perennial trees.
At present, the area for tree plantation in the Central Highlands reaches over 1 million hectares, accounting for 41.31% of the plantation area, an increase of nearly 200,000 hectares compared to 2010. The tree area, each year, produces over VND51.8 trillion, accounting for 36.78% of the plantation value of the whole region.
The region has 1.42 million hectares of perennial trees, an increase of over 361,000 hectares compared to 2010, in which coffee and pepper trees confirm their prestige in the country’s and the world's coffee and pepper production.
There are currently nearly 577,000 hectares of coffee in the region, accounting for 89.4% of the country’s coffee area. The robusta productivity in the Central Highlands is 3 times higher than the average of the world (2.5 tons per hectare compared to 0.8 ton per hectare), producing 1.3 million ton of kernel coffee, gaining over USD2.6 billion.
Pepper is planted across nearly 54,000 hectares, accounting for 55.2% of the pepper area of the country, with productivity of over 102,000 tons, accounting for 60.6% of the country’s pepper productivity, earning nearly USD1 billion.
The Central Highlands has encouraged farmers to change production in ineffective areas or those producing products that are difficult to be consumed, in order to plant other kinds of crops that bring higher income. On the other hand, the farmers have also been encouraged to change plantation in areas that face water shortages by planting drought-resistant trees.
In Dak Lak province’s Ea Kar and M’gar districts, many farming households have changed coffee areas that do not have enough water to grow fruit trees, mainly avocados, durians and oranges, gaining much higher economic efficiency than coffee.
Together with it, Central Highlands localities have expanded the application of agricultural production models using high technology to earn greater value at VND130 million per hectare or more, contributing to raising local residents’ living standards./.