Le Ba Hao, owner of a coffee nursery in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak, is about to destroy about 100,000 seedlings because there is no one to buy them.
Hao's predicament is shared by many coffee growers in the province, the nation's premier coffee growing region.
The trend to plant new coffee trees in Dak Lak and other neighbouring provinces last year pushed seedling prices up to about 10,000 dong per seedling, prompting large numbers of people to start growing them since early this year. Some of them even planted seedlings in their yards.
Hao says seedling farmers made good profits last year but now many of them are incurring great losses.
Farmers will lose 10 million dong (US$600) for every 10,000 coffee seedlings left unsold, he says, noting many farmers are keeping about 50,000-70,000 seedlings.
The oversupply has led to a critical price drop, from 1,800-4,000 dong per seedling in June to only 200-1,000 dong per seedling last month. Meanwhile, the cost to grow a seedling is already 800-2,500 dong.
Le Duc Tien, director of a company that sells seedlings in Dak Lak Province, says the supply this year has far exceeded the demand as the Central Highlands provinces have stopped expanding their coffee growing areas.
It is hard to monitor the quality of the seedlings in the province, he says, adding that seedlings are grown from seeds of unknown origin.
Tien says it could take several years before coffee farmers find out that they have bought bad seedlings.
A seedling grower in Buon Ma Thuot Town, who wishes to be unnamed, says there are no regulations about growing seedlings and no inspections carried out to test their quality.
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