Coffee farmers face difficulties due to floods

Standing there, looking at her coffee plantation after the flood, Ms. Dinh Thi Ngoc (village 1, Yang Mao commune) was still in shock. More than 1 hectare of her family's coffee plantation located along the Ea Gam stream (in Cu Dram village) was swept away by the flood. Water flowed like a stream right in the middle of the garden, and fruits fell all over the ground.

Ms. Ngoc said that the heavy rain on November 17-18 caused serious flooding in the commune. In particular, the floodwaters poured down causing serious landslides everywhere. Particularly in her family's garden area, rocks and soil from the hill collapsed and blocked the stream, causing the flow to change direction and crash straight into the garden. Nearly 1 sao of unharvested coffee was swept away, the remaining area was heavily flooded. "Although the rain has stopped, the water still floods the garden, making harvesting extremely difficult. With this 1 hectare, the family usually harvests about 3 tons of beans, but this year it is considered a failure. Not to mention, the trees that have been soaked in water for a long time have shown signs of leaf and green fruit loss and are at risk of not being able to recover," Ms. Ngoc lamented.

The coffee garden of Ms. Dinh Thi Ngoc's family (village 1, Yang Mao commune) was severely damaged by floods.

Mr. Nguyen Tan Truc, Chairman of the People's Committee of Yang Mao Commune, said that the flood situation was extremely complicated, causing heavy damage to the local agricultural sector. Four main crops including coffee, pineapple, durian and macadamia were all seriously affected. As for coffee trees, flash floods almost "wiped out" a large area along the river. Many households lost 5-6 sao of cultivated land overnight.

In the emergency, many people had to risk their lives swimming in the floodwaters to saw across the coffee roots, pull them to the shore to pick the fruit to salvage some of their property. Because the water in many areas is still deep, the local authorities have not been able to access to calculate the exact damage.

Not only Yang Mao commune, in Krong Bong commune, more than 300 hectares of coffee in the harvest season were also submerged in water. In Cu Pui commune, the damage amounted to over 600 hectares of coffee being swept away and inundated. Coffee being submerged for a long time means that the restoration of the garden is expected to take a long time, directly affecting people's lives in the long term.

Sharing the same fate, Mr. Nguyen Van Que's family (Tam Thuan village, Tam Giang commune) has 1.1 hectares of coffee located in a low-lying area. The recent rains submerged more than half of the area. As soon as the water receded, he had to hire workers to rush to the garden to pick up what was left. Mr. Que sadly said: "The 20-year-old garden, last year it produced 3 tons of beans, this year if you are lucky it will only yield 1 ton. With the current coffee price of over 110,000 VND/kg, I thought I would have a warm and prosperous Tet, but all my efforts went down the drain."

According to Mr. Mai Quoc Doanh, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of the People's Committee of Dliê Ya Commune, prolonged heavy rains also caused landslides in Tleh and Dliê Ya A villages, causing 15 hectares of coffee and 1 hectare of durian to be flooded. Notably, many areas of durian harvested late encountered heavy rains, causing the rice to be hard, the quality to decrease, and the selling price to plummet.

The 2025-2026 coffee harvest is facing numerous disadvantages due to extreme weather. Taking advantage of the current days of no rain, farmers in key coffee growing areas are racing against time to harvest to avoid the upcoming storms.

Ms. Luong Thi Vi (Xuan Ha village, Phu Xuan commune) worried: "We have to take advantage of every sunny hour to hire people to quickly harvest more than 1 hectare of ripening land. According to Ms. Vi, bad weather from the beginning of the season has reduced productivity, now the harvest is raining, making the garden muddy, labor costs increase due to the long harvest time.

People of Phu Xuan commune take advantage of the rain to pick coffee.

The worry of "storm upon storm" is also weighing heavily on the family of Mr. Loc Thiet (Tleh hamlet, Dliê Ya commune) when more than 1 hectare of coffee has ripened but no beans have been picked yet. Mr. Thiet analyzed: "Every year, the end of November is the time to harvest coffee in the Central Highlands, the weather is sunny and favorable. This year, the rain and floods have slowed down the progress by half a month. More dangerously, the heavy rain means that the ripe fruit has not been picked yet but the tree has already bloomed. Harvesting at this time can easily break the flowers, seriously affecting the yield of the next crop."

Preliminary statistics show that the recent floods have flooded and damaged about 70,000 hectares of annual and perennial crops. According to the Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection, coffee is a key crop, accounting for a large proportion of the economic structure and export turnover of Dak Lak province. With an area of over 212,000 hectares and an average output of over 530,000 tons/year, any fluctuations in this industry will directly affect the income of the majority of people.

Accordingly, for flooded gardens, it is necessary to urgently dig trenches, clear the flow, and pump water out of the garden. For drained gardens, focus on lightly tilling and breaking the topsoil layer in the canopy area to help the soil breathe and stimulate new root regeneration. When the root system recovers, apply organic fertilizer combined with mineral fertilizer and spray foliar fertilizer, limiting the use of chemical fertilizers immediately. For trees with loose roots, it is necessary to prune, hill up the base and use biological products to fight harmful fungi.

Faced with the complicated developments of climate change and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, to ensure the effectiveness of the 2025-2026 crop year and maintain its position as the coffee capital, the Department of Agriculture and Environment recommends that farmers take technical measures to "save" their gardens after the flood.

Source: https://baodaklak.vn/kinh-te/202512/nong-dan-trong-ca-phe-gap-kho-vi-mua-lu-240197d/