According to preliminary figures from the Vietnam National Coffee Corporation (Vinacafe), Typhoon No. 9 has caused heavy losses to several member companies, mainly in the provinces of Kon Tum and Gia Lai.
The main damage came from strong winds that snapped branches, stripped fruit, and in many places uprooted or loosened coffee trees. Fresh-cherry processing and drying plants also lost roofs and suffered serious structural damage.
The hardest hit was Dak Uy 3 Coffee Company (Kon Tum), where about 20 % of the coffee area was uprooted and 77 ha of paddy rice in the flowering stage was flattened, losing an estimated 40 – 50 % of yield (roughly 200 tons of grain). Of the company’s 350 ha of coffee, 25 – 30 % lost leaves and fruit. At Coffee Company 715B, some 390 ha of robusta and arabica coffee suffered broken branches and heavy fruit drop.
Notably, a coffee-sector enterprise that had invested in shrimp farming in Quang Ngai saw the embankments of all six shrimp ponds break, with almost all the farmers’ equipment lost.
Mr. Lê Thế Chỉ, Deputy General Director of Vinacafe, reported that about 7,000 ha of coffee have been damaged—valued at roughly 5–10 billion VND—out of the corporation’s total 17,000 ha. “Because most of the coffee trees were stripped of leaves, had branches broken and roots loosened by the storm, the 2010–2011 coffee harvest is expected to fall by 15–20 %,” he said.
The coffee sector is now urgently directing units to overcome the aftermath. As an immediate measure, workers whose houses were completely destroyed will receive 1 million VND per house in assistance; those with severely damaged houses will receive 500,000 VND.