The trees on a coffee farm owned by Pun Coffee Co Ltd. “Tree planting is the first step in our plan to develop green labelled coffee and sell carbon credits,” said Luong Ngoc Tram, CEO of the company.

When the 2024 competition for the best coffee specialties ended in late April when Pun Coffee won first prize, Tram and her husband returned to their routine work in the sunny and windy house located on Pun hill. 

While classifying Arabica beans, Tram told VietNamNet that she is attached to coffee plant, the specialty with more-than-100-year history in Khe Sanh, for several years.

“I left HCM City and came here in September 2019. My husband (Phan Hong Phong – reporter) was here earlier,” she recalled.

“At that moment, some people thought we were ‘crazy’. However, we vowed to continue the career that our father had been attached to for tens of years,” she explained.

Phong’s father was one of the pioneers developing Arabica plants in Huong Phung.

Tram and her husband experienced tough days when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. As coffee did not sell, they had to trade other farm produce to pursue the plan to develop coffee plants.

“Instead of processing coffee only, we decided that we needed to create a production chain, from growing coffee, collecting beans to processing finished products,” she said. “High-quality coffee is the result of many factors combined, including soil, farming methods, harvesting and processing."

As Phong is good at roasting skill and planting, he is in charge of developing the growing area. The cultivation must be implemented with a standard process, with no chemicals used. They deal with insects with biological products and standard isolation time. Farmers have to write cultivation diaries, while the company sends staff to farms for inspection at random.

Tram said it was difficult to persuade farmers, most of whom were Van Kieu ethnic minority to follow the new farming method because they had used chemical fertilizers for years, 

When Tram and her husband promised to buy coffee beans from farmers at the G+5 price (market price + VND5,000), farmers agreed to follow the new method.

Finally, they realized that the new cultivation method could bring benefits to them and the company. Some households can earn VND150 million from selling ripened coffee with a yield of 10 tons per hectare.

Their coffee growing area has been expanding step by step. There are 200 hectares of coffee now and the targeted figure is 300 hectares.

The forest on a coffee farm

On Pun Coffee’s Facebook, posts say coffee plants generate too much CO2, causing greenhouse gas effects, small businesses have to be responsible to improve the environment.

This was why Pun Coffee planted a forest on a coffee farm, commencing in 2021, in order to establish biodiversity structure on coffee hills.

When discussing the project on planting 1 million green trees on coffee hills in Khe Sanh, Van Kieu residents wanted to grow fruit trees, while the foreign partner suggested growing big wood trees. Pun Coffee once again had to convince farmers to develop forestry, though farmers will have to wait a long time to exploit the wood for sale.

“Coffee hills have changed a lot. When you enter the coffee farms, you can feel the fragrance of the soil. Coffee trees, after harvesting, remain strong with green leaves, while the atmosphere is fresh,” Tram said.

Green-label coffee and carbon credits

Khe Sanh’s coffee has become more famous, while Pun Coffee has many times won first prizes at competitions and is now among global top five coffee specialties. But for Tram and her husband, their final goal is green-label coffee and carbon credits for sale.

Tram said she understands that they will have to go a long path to create carbon credits for sale. It is a wrong idea that when you grow trees to absorb carbon, you will be able to sell carbon credits.

Many things need to be done to join the new commodity market. Tram revealed that they are following instructions by foreign partners who have experience in the field.

Tam An - Hien Anh