Report Says Vietnam’s Robusta Boom Faces a Reckoning

The rise of Vietnam as a coffee-producing powerhouse has been one of the most consequential shifts in the global coffee trade over the past 40 years.  

What began as a relatively modest crop under French colonial rule grew slowly for decades, then exploded after the Đổi mới reforms of the late 1980s, when liberalized land rights and state-supported export ambitions helped transform the country into a robusta juggernaut.

Vietnam is now the world’s second-largest green coffee producer behind Brazil, with roughly 700,000 hectares of coffee land, including the key Central Highlands region. 

A new report from the advocacy group Coffee Watch argues that the transformation has come with steep environmental and social costs.

In “Robusta’s Reckoning,” the group contends that the country’s volume-driven coffee model helped reshape the Central Highlands through extensive forest loss, groundwater depletion, chemical intensification and persistent smallholder vulnerability.

“Vietnam is the backbone of the world’s affordable coffee supply,” Coffee Watch Founder Etelle Higonnet said in an announcement of the report. “If this system collapses, the shockwaves will be felt in every supermarket and every cafe.”

According to the report, the vast majority of Vietnam’s coffee is grown in the Central Highlands, while roughly 97% of national production is robusta. Using forest-loss data and a high-resolution coffee map from CIAT, the report estimates that more than 207,000 hectares of humid tropical forest were cleared since 1990 in areas now mapped as coffee cultivation.

The report does note that Vietnam experienced a sharp decline in deforestation over the past decade, yet says that it “slowed primarily because accessible forest was depleted, not because of improved protection or governance.”

Additionally, the lingering effects of deforested, full-sun coffee-growing systems found in wide swaths throughout the Central Highlands — including heavy groundwater use and reliance on chemical inputs — are making the ecological conditions more fragile by the year. 

Higonette told DCN that the report appears to have generated significant internet traffic from Vietnam, as well as coverage from major international outlets such as El País and Le Monde, although there has been little evidence of Vietnamese-language coverage. 

“I assume the government does not want this and will not allow it in the outlets that it can control,” Higonette said. 

Digging In

The report says 57% to 95% of coffee irrigation water in the Central Highlands comes from groundwater, with some wells that once reached 10 to 15 meters now extending as deep as 45 meters. It also cites research suggesting that maintaining groundwater balance under current irrigation practices in some watersheds would require a reduction of roughly 35% in coffee area.

Add rising heat, longer dry seasons and more erratic rainfall, the report argues, and the pressures on Vietnam’s coffee belt are intensifying, even if the recent rate of forest loss has diminished.

Farmers Are Vulnerable

The social case is just as sharp. The report says Vietnam’s coffee sector includes about 640,000 smallholder households across approximately 1.4 million plots, with smallholders producing about 95% of national output.

It cites evidence of high rural poverty in the Central Highlands, especially among ethnic minority communities, while arguing that child labor in coffee has likely been significantly undercounted in official statistics.

The report also warns that land-title gaps and weak record-keeping could leave many smallholders exposed as new traceability demands, particularly from the new European deforestation-free regulation (EUDR), take hold.

On EUDR

Coffee Watch argues that the EUDR could help prevent new forest clearing, but remains incomplete because its Dec. 31, 2020, cutoff date for deforestation-free compliance does not address most of the historical forest loss embedded in Vietnam’s existing coffee lands.

The report also warns that weak enforcement or repeated delays — as has been the pattern — could help create a two-tier coffee economy, where large exporters build compliant traceability systems while smaller and poorer farmers get squeezed out due to lack of resources. 

The Watch Continues

Coffee Watch continues to be one of the most outspoken civil-society voices pressing for tougher environmental and labor accountability in coffee.

The organization was part of the VOCAL alliance that launched in 2024 to push back against industry calls for weaker or slower EUDR enforcement, and it drew headlines last year with a Brazil-focused report alleging continued forest loss in the coffee lands.