The Central Highlands has a natural area of more than 5,450 thousand ha; of which, the agricultural land group is more than 4,922 thousand hectares, accounting for 90.31%, the non-agricultural land group is more than 343 thousand hectares, accounting for 6.30%, the unused land group is more than 184 thousand hectares, accounting for 3.39%. The Central Highlands has formed large-scale agricultural commodities that participate in the global value chain such as coffee, pepper, and rubber due to the association between farmers and cooperatives, businesses, and economic groups. . Coffee and pepper are two types of long-term industrial crops with an export value of over 1 billion USD of Vietnam; in which Vietnam's pepper export output ranks first; Coffee ranks second in the world.
Valuable basalt red land
Because this is a landlocked land and quite close to the equator, the climate of the Central Highlands is intensely sunny and dry. With soil characteristics of red basalt at an altitude of about 500 m to 600 m above sea level, the Central Highlands soil is suitable for the development of industrial crops. Climate wise, there are two distinct seasons, the dry season and the rainy season. The dry season is hot and dry, the water shortage is severe; the rainy season is hot and humid, with 85-90% of the rainfall.
Favorable for:
Growing fruit frees
The Central Highlands has great potential and advantages in terms of land (the whole region has 2 million hectares of agricultural land); has favorable climate, soil and geographical conditions for agricultural economic development in the direction of large production, mechanization and application of high technology.
Achievements:
The Central Highlands has become a major agricultural production area
As of 2020, the whole region has nearly 610,000ha of coffee (accounting for 90% of the country's coffee area); pepper has 90,000 ha (accounting for more than 60%); cashew has 83,000 ha (accounting for 28%); rubber over 250,000ha (accounting for 26%); avocado has 2.8 thousand hectares (accounting for more than 82%); durian has 12.6 thousand hectares (accounting for 34%); The vegetable and flower area in Lam Dong has more than 30% of its area produced in the direction of high technology... The Central Highlands has become a commodity production area with a number of key products concentrated in, and an area that specializes in large industrial crops. , fruit trees, making an important contribution to the total export turnover of agro-forestry-fishery products of the country, and at the same time gradually realizing the goal of building the Central Highlands into a key economic region.
Challenges:
According to the analysis of the 2016 State budget revenue by Mr. Tran Duc Vien at the Vietnam Academy of Agriculture, the Central Highlands contributes the lowest in the country, only 1.4% of the national average income per capita. The region's average income per capita is equal to only 79% of the national average. The poverty rate is still high (7.3%, while the whole country’s is 4.5%), even though this is the land with rich and diverse natural conditions, and of the most potential in the country in the development of commodity agriculture. This stems from many causes, most of them the unsustainable heated development. The vast but fragmented land is being degraded and "poisoned" by the excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Agricultural products are exported in great quantities but the prices are low because products are mainly exported in raw-material forms and do not have strong brands yet.
Aim for future
Promoting accumulation and concentration of agricultural land in the Central Highlands
(The land potential of the Central Highlands has not been fully exploited due to the fragmentation of land; household farmers with low production resources occupy most of the agricultural production land, while cooperatives, enterprises, and groups of cooperatives, enterprises, agricultural production groups have investment capacity and need to expand production but lack of productive land Forestry programs and Forest Management Boards manage a large amount of forest land but use it inefficiently , while local people lack productive land, leading to land disputes.)