1/24/14, "How Vietnam became a coffee giant," BBC,
Think of coffee and you
will probably think of Brazil, Colombia, or maybe Ethiopia. But the
world's second largest exporter today is Vietnam. How did its market
share jump from 0.1% to 20% in just 30 years, and how has this rapid
change affected the country?
Collectivising agriculture proved to be a disaster, so in 1986 the Communist Party carried out a U-turn - placing a big bet, at the same time, on coffee.
Coffee production then grew by 20%-30% every year in the 1990s. The industry now employs about 2.6 million people, with beans grown on half a million smallholdings of two to three acres each.
This has helped transform the Vietnamese economy. In 1994 some 60% of Vietnamese lived under the poverty line, now less than 10% do....
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