Sustainable agriculture; Perennial crops; Economic performance; Dak Lak; Vietnam; Intercropping
Abstract :
[en] The perennial crops are known as a capital importance in Vietnam’s Central Highlands in general and Dak Lak in particular. They are to improve income, abolishing starvation and reducing poverty, in which coffee, pepper and rubber are driving force crops. The cultivation areas, productivity and export have been increasing gradually from 1986 till now. In the recently, population explosion problem due to spontaneous migration from delta and other regions has been created a pressure for agricultural production. Additionally, production of agriculture in general and perennial crops cultivation in particular, households have been facing with many risks as climate change, unstable market and disease. Therefore, in order to reduce damage, in practiced production, farmer often carries out many effective solutions. One of all is perennial intercropping system. The study is about economic performance of coffee and pepper intercropping (CPI) in Quang Hiep commune, CuMgar district, Dak Lak province. A household survey of 50 of CPI farmers and key informants interviews were conducted in 2015 by using method of descriptive and cooperative statistics. The research findings indicated that CPI brought economic performance to farming household. Particularly, although the investment cost spent 165.7 million VND per hectare and the annual cost occupied 60.5 million VND, the gross product reached 358.4 million VND. After deducting for intermediate cost, the farmer received over 304.4 million VND of family net income (FNI). Furthermore, this system is highly cost-effective investment because the ratio cost of gross product and value added are 10 % and 13 %, respectively. The income per family labor is 0.9 million VND. Key recommendations and new study approach were proposed for sustainable development.
