According to the Central Highlands Agro-Forestry Science and Technology Institute, the region is now in the rainy season, and coffee growers and businesses are concentrating on caring for their coffee trees to reduce premature fruit drop. Their goal for the 2010–2011 harvest is to reach a total output of at least 930,000 tons of green coffee beans, including nearly 450,000 tons in Đắk Lắk Province and over 282,000 tons in Lâm Đồng Province.
Farmers and coffee enterprises are busy weeding, pruning side branches, and removing excess shoots to channel nutrients toward the young coffee cherries. They are also investing in specialized fertilizers, applying them at the right time and in the correct seasonal windows. In recent years, many households have started making their own organic bio-fertilizer from agricultural by-products such as coffee husks, bean pods, and corn cobs to supplement nutrients for the coffee plants.
This rainy season alone, coffee producers in Đắk Lắk have produced tens of thousands of tons of organic bio-fertilizer for their plantations. They have also begun adopting international coffee-certification programs, aiming for sustainable production, minimizing environmental impact, and enhancing the global competitiveness of their coffee.
In Đắk Lắk alone, 12 companies and thousands of farmers are now producing certified and traceable coffee under programs such as 4C and UTZ Kapeh, covering more than 14,000 hectares. Under these international certification schemes, farmers and businesses strictly follow standards in seed selection, planting, irrigation, pest management, and fertilizer use to avoid harming the environment.
At the same time, Central Highlands provinces are intensifying inspections and quality control of agricultural inputs and fertilizers to prevent the sale of poor-quality or counterfeit materials that could harm farmers.
Currently, the Central Highlands has over 450,000 hectares of coffee, of which about 425,000 hectares are in commercial production. Đắk Lắk has the largest coffee area—more than 185,000 hectares, including 173,400 hectares in production—followed by Lâm Đồng with 128,289 hectares in harvest, and the remaining coffee-growing areas are in Gia Lai and Đắk Nông provinces.