Immediate actions required to prevent forest loss in coffee production: official
The coffee industry must take action immediately to prevent forest loss and avoid another “yellow card” warning from the EU as with the fisheries sector over illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, said Director of the National Agricultural Extension Centre (NAEC) Le Quoc Thanh.
At a seminar held in Da Lat city, nearly 200 experts and coffee farmers look into the compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation. (Photo: VNA)
Lam Dong (VNA) – Thecoffee industry must take action immediately to prevent forest loss and avoidanother “yellow card” warning from the EU as with the fisheriessector over illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, said Director ofthe National Agricultural Extension Centre (NAEC) Le Quoc Thanh.
He made the remarks while addressinga seminar held in Da Lat city, the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong, onAugust 24 to discuss the role of community-based agricultural extension indeforestation-free coffee production. The Central Highlands is the biggestcoffee cultivation hub of Vietnam.
Thanh noted that community-basedagricultural extension has a crucial role to play in helping promote the industry’stransparency and compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
This is also an occasion to identifychallenges and build an action plan to address shortcomings before the EUDR isofficially applied, he went on.
At the event, nearly 200 experts andcoffee farmers looked into the compliance with the EUDR, which was adopted bythe European Parliament in April 2023, entered into force in June 2023, andwill be applied to major companies from December 2024.
A number of exports to the EU aresubject to the EUDR, including coffee, and the regulation is applied to all theimporters or exporters of related products to the bloc.
Illustration image (Photo: VNA)
Vietnam’s exports to the EU stand ataround 2.3 billion EUR (2.5 billion USD), mainly coffee (47.5%), wood (35.2%)and rubber (17.1%).
Nguyen Phi Hung, a specialist fromthe Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), stressed that the EUDR adherence needs theconnectivity of relevant parties. Among them, state agencies likeprovincial-level departments of agriculture and rural development, sub-departmentsof forestry protection, and local People’s Committees need to share forest andland registry data, basing on which agricultural extension centres andcommunity-based agricultural extension groups would carry out communications andtraining in deforestation-free production for farmers.
The NAEC said it has formed fivematerial supply zones meeting the EUDR, including 11,200ha of coffee cultivationin the Central Highlands./.
In 2022, Vietnam had 14,790,075 ha of forest area, of which 10,134,082 ha were natural forests and 4,655,933 ha were planted ones, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced in a decision on June 20.
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At a seminar held in Da Lat city, nearly 200 experts and coffee farmers look into the compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation. (Photo: VNA) 
Illustration image (Photo: VNA) 
