Vietnam has become the world’s second largest exporter of coffee and the largest exporter of robusta bean. In the past ten years, coffee has been one of Vietnam’s staple exports that has made great contributions to the industrialization and modernization process. Living standard of coffee-planters, however, has not much improved because revenue from selling coffee is not much higher than production cost. | ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT No. 204, August 2011 MEASURES TO INCREASE INCOME OF COFFEE-PLANTERS IN WESTERN HIGHLANDS by Assoc. Prof, Dr. ÑINH PHI HOÅ* & MEcon. PHAÏM NGOÏC DÖÔÕNG** Vietnam has become the world’s second largest exporter of coffee and the largest exporter of robusta bean. In the past ten years, coffee has been one of Vietnam’s staple exports that has made great contributions to the industrialization and modernization process. Living standard of coffee-planters, however, has not much improved because revenue from selling coffee is not much higher than production cost. This problem means that scientific solutions to income rises are real challenges to policy-makers. To find a solution, it is necessary to identify factors that affect the income of coffee planters. Employing the theory of agronomy and realities in Vietnam, authors have developed a multivariate regression model to quantify the factors that affect the income of coffee planters. A direct investigation of 293 coffee-growing families in provinces of Laâm Ñoàng and Ñaék Laék was carried out with a view to testing and putting the model into practice. Results show that the income is affected by four factors: coffee-growing area, strain of coffee, coffee-planters’ knowledge, and application of biological techniques. Keywords: coffee, income of planter families, multivariate regression 1. Introduction Coffee is one of the farm products that yields high values and is an important source of income for many countries including Vietnam. In the past decade, it has been one of staple exports of Vietnam and made great contributions to the industrialization and modernization process. From 2005 on, export of coffee has brought Vietnam in from US$ to billion a year. Coffee planters, however, still face a lot of difficulties and their income from coffee is sometimes lower than the production cost. To find a scientific solution to this problem, therefore, is a real challenge to policy-makers. Identifying .
