Vietnam’s Coffee Crops Suffer Rising Temps and Drought

The last time Nguyen Van Viet saw water in his well was almost four months ago.  The 44-year-old has farmed coffee in central Vietnam for two decades and says that’s never happened before.
...
For Viet and millions of other coffee farmers, this season has been disastrous.  A prolonged drought has affected all five provinces in Vietnam’s Central Highlands – a region that produces 60 percent of the country’s coffee.

“Normally, in March or April, it should start [to] rain, but this year it hasn’t rained until now,” Viet said.  “Over the years I’ve realized it’s getting harder to grow coffee mostly because lack of water.  The temperatures are getting higher and higher and the rainfall is less.”
...
The result has been a five-year low in coffee exports, 40 percent down on the same period in 2014.  The economic costs have yet to be tallied.

Vietnam is the world’s largest producer of Robusta, a tougher, more bitter bean often used in instant coffee and espresso.  The French introduced the plant in the 19th century and in the post-war years it helped pull millions of Vietnamese from poverty.  The industry grew rapidly in the 1990s, making Vietnam the world’s second-largest exporter of coffee and supplying around a quarter of the UK’s coffee.

Read more at Vietnam’s Coffee Crops Suffer Rising Temps and Drought