He made the remarks while addressing a seminar held in Da Lat city, the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong, on August 24 to discuss the role of community-based agricultural extension in deforestation-free coffee production. The Central Highlands is the biggest coffee cultivation hub of Vietnam.
Thanh noted that community-based agricultural extension has a crucial role to play in helping promote the industry’s transparency and compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
This is also an occasion to identify challenges and build an action plan to address shortcomings before the EUDR is officially applied, he went on.
At the event, nearly 200 experts and coffee farmers looked into the compliance with the EUDR, which was adopted by the European Parliament in April 2023, entered into force in June 2023, and will be applied to major companies from December 2024.
A number of exports to the EU are subject to the EUDR, including coffee, and the regulation is applied to all the importers or exporters of related products to the bloc.
Vietnam’s exports to the EU stand at around 2.3 billion EUR (2.5 billion USD), mainly coffee (47.5%), wood (35.2%) and rubber (17.1%).
Nguyen Phi Hung, a specialist from the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), stressed that the EUDR adherence needs the connectivity of relevant parties. Among them, state agencies like provincial-level departments of agriculture and rural development, sub-departments of forestry protection, and local People’s Committees need to share forest and land registry data, basing on which agricultural extension centres and community-based agricultural extension groups would carry out communications and training in deforestation-free production for farmers.
The NAEC said it has formed five material supply zones meeting the EUDR, including 11,200ha of coffee cultivation in the Central Highlands.
