The analysis presents the business case for sustainable Robusta coffee cultivation in the Central Highlands region of Vietnam. In recent years, intercropping models involving coffee interspersed with shade or fruit trees have demonstrated their potential to generate multiple benefits to smallholders and the environment. This analysis focuses on the economic benefits of transitioning from an intensive coffee cultivation model to three different intercropping models: avocado, durian and cassia siamea and pepper, and makes recommendations concerning the transition pathway that will be most accessible to smallholders.
Coffee production in the Central Highlands faces a multitude of challenges; decades of intensive cultivation and expansion onto marginal land has degraded the soil quality and left smallholders less resilient to both climate change and vulnerable to fluctuations in the price of coffee. As a result, many smallholders are in a negative spiral of declining yields leading to the increasing application of inputs to compensate, which is further reducing their already limited margins.
