Coffee farms hitting 30 tonnes per hectare in Gia Lai

Treating contract plots like family land

Nguyen Xuan The, Party cell secretary and team leader of Unit 4 at Ia Sao 2 Coffee Company in Ia H'rung commune, is unequivocal about what drives the business: the health and productivity of the trees.

Unit 4 manages 107 hectares of coffee, of which 62 hectares were planted in 2015 on land converted from underperforming rubber plantations, while the remaining 45 hectares date to 1986 and 1987. All of it is farmed under contract by 115 households.

The most recent harvest season was the most productive on record. Gardens planted in the 1986-1987 period averaged 19.1 tonnes of fresh fruit per hectare, while the newer 2015 plantings averaged 20.6 tonnes. Those are the averages; a significant number of individual plots ranged from 25 to over 30 tonnes per hectare.

The explained the combination of factors behind those figures. As a state enterprise, the company implements care protocols systematically, but contract households remain the decisive actors when they follow every technical step prescribed by the company. Watering schedules, branch pruning, weeding, and nutrient management are all carried out with discipline. Weather conditions have also played a favorable role.

"Another factor is that coffee has had good harvests and good prices for several years running, so farmers have been willing to invest heavily, and that is reflected in the yields," The said.

Also at Ia Sao 2, Unit 3 manages 120 hectares - 70 hectares from 1986 and 50 hectares planted in 2014. Its average yield for the 2025 season reached 22 tonnes of fresh fruit per hectare.

Unit 3 team leader Pham Ngoc Bay said contract farmers treat their assigned plots as if they were their own family land, and invest accordingly. Beyond following the company's technical guidelines, many households make use of agricultural byproducts — fermenting coffee husks with cattle manure to produce organic microbial fertilizer. "Adding this organic input helps the garden develop sustainably and builds resistance to pests and diseases, which in turn pushes yields and bean quality higher," Bay said.

The 30-tonne gardens

Unit 3 stands out within Ia Sao 2 for the number of plots reaching the highest yield thresholds. Vo Thi Thuy Trang harvested 30.2 tonnes of fresh fruit per hectare, Nguyen Xuan The recorded 30.1 tonnes on his personal plot, and Le Van Dung came in at 29.8 tonnes.

Although The leads Unit 4, he holds one hectare under Unit 3's management. In the 2025 season, that single hectare produced 31.1 tonnes of fresh fruit, placing him among the top performers across the entire company. He credited scientific cultivation practices alongside favorable weather as the twin pillars of high-yield farming.

Le Van Dung's garden, planted in 2015, has been recognized as one of the model plots for Unit 3 and for the company as a whole. The near-30-tonne yield is not a one-off; it has been sustained over multiple seasons, a result that The sees as the natural outcome of following the company's recommended approach without shortcuts.

On fertilization, Dung supplements the company's prescribed inputs with organic microbial fertilizer each year, composted entirely from his own coffee husks and cattle manure. He draws an analogy to explain his philosophy: "Coffee responding to organic fertilizer is like a person taking traditional herbal medicine. The effect comes more slowly, but the plant develops sustainably and stays more resistant to disease."

Dung said applying the right amount of organic matter, not too much, not too little, is what allows a garden to perform consistently at a high level year after year.

Ia Sao 2 Coffee Company director Nguyen Ngo Hung said the company manages a total of 525 hectares, of which 464 hectares are in commercial production. Total fertilizer investment across that area amounts to 19.5 billion Vietnamese dong, averaging more than 42 million dong per hectare, a level the company considers necessary to sustain uniform growth and quality.

"We have focused on strict implementation of all technical care procedures, from pruning and garden hygiene to pest and disease control, with technical staff monitoring each stage to prevent problems from taking hold or spreading," Hung said.

The 2025 season delivered strong results across most of the company's units. Beyond Units 3 and 4, Unit 5 averaged 18.31 tonnes of fresh fruit per hectare, Unit 2 reached 17.72 tonnes, and Unit 1 recorded 15.52 tonnes.