Vietnam's Central Highlands coffee belt has identified 200,000 hectares of land, half of which would be used to nearly double the region's rubber plantations to 220,000 hectares by 2010, state media reported on Monday.
The region, comprising five provinces which produce 80 percent of Vietnam's total coffee output, has 116,000 hectares (acres) of rubber under plantation at present, the Vietnam News daily said on Monday.
Vietnam, the world's fourth-largest natural rubber exporter, plans to plant 100,000 hectares of rubber by 2010 in four provinces of Daklak, Gia Lai, Contemn and Dark Nong as part of a programme aimed at improving the life of ethnic minority tribes in the area.
A Vietnam News Agency report said 71 percent of the total 202,200 hectares (500,000 acres) identified in the five provinces for growing rubber are currently bamboo plantations, although they are not highly productive. Rubber trees can also be grown on nearly 37,000 hectares of unused land plus 22,000 hectares now used for coffee and other crops but which are also of low productivity, it added.
A government steering committee overseeing the Central Highlands development, which met on Sunday, said increasing crop yields and agricultural production should help improve the life of the highland farmers, the Vietnam News daily said.
The region is already Vietnam's largest coffee growing area, producing 800,000 tonnes or 13.3 million 60-kg bags of coffee from the harvest that ended in January. Vietnam has a total 490,700 hectares of rubber cultivation. It aims to raise latex output by 13 percent to 700,000 tonnes by 2010 from 620,000 tonnes forecast for 2007.
In 2006 Vietnamese companies started planting rubber trees in the Central Highlands and also in neighbouring Laos and Cambodia to boost output. It takes between five and seven years before rubber trees are mature enough to provide latex.