Coffee seedlings are “on fire” in the market like never before

Even in the midst of the scorching dry season, with streams and lakes drying up, coffee traders are still sneaking in and clearing out seedlings from nurseries, waiting to sell them for profit when the wave of coffee growing competition breaks out right at the beginning of the next rainy season. . Whether or not Vietnamese coffee will return to the crisis of excess area and output is still a matter of several years to come, but concerns about seedling quality have appeared right now.

There hasn’t been a significant rain for nearly half a year, but Mr. Nguyen Quang Thao in village 10, Ea Hiu commune, Cu Kuin district, Dak Lak province still took the opportunity to buy more than a hundred coffee seedlings to plant, replacing the pepper garden. has withered.

Mr. Thao said that during the peak of the dry season like this, not many people would plant trees or sow seeds. But this year, coffee prices are unprecedentedly high, causing seedlings to soon burn out of the market. Bud-grafted coffee has been sold out in nurseries for a long time, so Mr. Thao has had to buy real plants (sown from seeds). He sighed when he saw a new cycle of racing to grow coffee begin, but had to go along with it, because after thinking about it, growing coffee was still the most suitable.

“Previously, my place only grew pepper. For the past two or three years, we’ve been growing durian. Now, like this year, we’re starting to switch to growing eggplants… We’re starting to race to grow them. But now here we only grow eggplants. But I don’t know what happens to fruit trees” – Mr. Thao shared.

Village 11, Hoa Thang commune, Buon Ma Thuot city, plant nursery center in Dak Lak province, the atmosphere of buying and selling plants is busier than ever.

Ms. Le Thi Van, a nursery owner here, said that some nurseries in the village sold out of trees nearly 2 months ago, to traders from Gia Lai, Dak Nong and Lam Dong, right when the trees were still in existence. the age of “scallop leaves, cheek leaves”. Now, the price of seedlings is continuing to increase every day, but farmers cannot directly buy them because the traders are competing for them all.

Ms. Van calls her friends who buy wholesale seedlings “these guys”, because the two are so familiar.

“For example, in my house, the seedlings are now sold out. There is no one to buy them. The plants are all passed through the hands of these traders. They go searching for gardeners. In general, the price of seedlings now increases every day. Every few days Before 4,300 VND we didn’t take it, but now we still fight for 4,500 VND” – Ms. Van said.

According to the Central Highlands Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Science and Technology, coffee prices have now reached an all-time high, with the delivery price in May 2024 being 4,224 USD/1 ton, far exceeding the level of 3,150 USD/ton achieved. in June 1994, so the rush to plant coffee was almost an inevitable consequence.

Dr. Tran Vinh, Director of the Institute, said that this year’s growing wave is unlikely to lead to overproduction and price crisis because in the past few years, Central Highlands coffee has continuously reduced both area and output. , because people switched to growing durian and fruit trees. However, the coffee seed market is sold out, causing great concern about quality.

“This situation is extremely worrying because many outsiders take advantage of the very high price of coffee, so some establishments take seeds from other places, rather than producing them here. Because the seeds Produced here, like buying from the Institute, it will take at least May to sell. But now, if it is available in March or April, it must be picked up somewhere, and people will take it home and sell it The quality of a coffee tree cannot be known” – Dr. Tran Vinh emphasized.