Network of Asia and Pacific Producers was invited to be a part of the Coffee Outlook, an annual conference held in Vietnam with a focus on trends in Coffee marketing, retailing and branding to address the pressing sustainable, commercial and market issues confronting the industry. Every year it is represented by renowned coffee players from multinational companies to small roasters who have an influence in the Vietnam coffee market.
Tran Ban Hung – Program Consultant of Vietnam represented NAPP as one of the panel speakers to share success stories of Fairtrade coffee producers in Vietnam. He spoke on the importance and benefits of Fairtrade certification for coffee producers in Vietnam in order to improve upon their ways of producing sustainable coffee, to better the livelihoods of farmer members in their cooperatives and to further develop and strengthen their farming communities. Fairtrade projects on climate change adaptation and mitigation, use of biofertilizers as opposed to hazardous chemicals, shadow tree plantation techniques, effective water usage methods were some of the highlights during the discussion. Much stress was laid on the smart usage of Fairtrade premium amount to support the above projects.
NAPP Climate School Projects across India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Laos were introduced during the discussion. The first phase interventions at the pilot projects with respect to capacity building using local intelligence for adapting to climate change, installation of weather stations, monitoring of weather reports and appropriate solutions to ensure the coffees are grown under best conditions were part of the panel discussions. Many interests were expressed by the audience on the productivity and quality of Fairtrade coffee. Details of producers were shared with relevant inquiries at the Conference.
