With export turnover in 2025 approaching USD 3 billion, Dak Lak’s agricultural sector is steadily reinforcing its position as a firm pillar of the provincial economy. Beyond production volume, this field is experiencing a qualitative shift propelled by two strategic pillars: digital transformation alongside green transition.

Leverage from dual transformation

Dak Lak holds 1.6 million hectares of production land, with 40% comprising fertile basalt soil that supports large-scale commodity zones for industrial crops as well as fruit trees. In 2025, despite pronounced volatility across global markets, the provincial export turnover still exceeded USD 2.8 billion, marking a 26.1% rise over the prior year.

Residents of Dak Lak harvesting fully ripe coffee cherries to enhance the quality of export products.

Amid climate change pressures plus increasingly strict non-tariff technical barriers, the agricultural sector has been required to adjust its governance approach toward digital transformation alongside a green economy so as to raise sustainable value while ensuring transparent quality standards.

Leading this shift, Simexco Daklak Co., Ltd. created digital agricultural maps for coffee together with pepper, encompassing data from 50,000 farming households, while maintaining traceability systems for every export shipment…

Across specialized fruit-growing zones, circular agriculture models are likewise proving highly effective. A notable case is Banana Brothers Farm Joint Stock Company (Ea Rieng Commune), where a 700-hectare tissue-cultured banana area has enabled by-products to be converted into useful resources.

Regarding coffee, since 2008 the province has carried out numerous major programs plus projects aimed at securing international certifications. Significantly, Dak Lak’s cultivation areas were the first worldwide to obtain 4C-EUDR (European Union Deforestation Regulation) certification for deforestation-free products, with 35% of the provincial total coffee acreage already digitized.

Shaping a new development space

Dak Lak occupies a strategically vital position regarding national defense as well as security, while enjoying favorable conditions for building an open economy, advancing international integration, plus promoting harmonious links between the vast highlands with the sea.

A sustainable coffee raw-material zone in Cu M’gar commune.

Addressing the First Congress of the Dak Lak Provincial Party Organization for the 2025-2030 tenure, Comrade Nguyen Van Nen, former Politburo Member, conveyed his expectation that, given its remarkable economic, social, plus cultural strengths, Dak Lak could serve as a model of successful consolidation and emerge as a new growth pole for the South Central Coast-Central Highlands area. In pursuit of this strategic vision, he stressed that the provincial agricultural sector should prioritize restructuring in a sustainable, ecological, circular manner. He further highlighted the necessity of nurturing a new generation of farmers, dynamic, innovative individuals able to master science together with technology to enrich the knowledge content within agricultural products; while allocating priority resources for science, technology, alongside digital transformation as primary drivers across every field.

Based on evaluations by the Department of Agriculture and Environment, the synergistic interplay between the forest economy alongside the marine economy has opened breakthrough development prospects built upon two pillars: the forest economy associated with the “Buon Ma Thuot Coffee” brand, together with the marine economy linked with the “Phu Yen Lobster” brand.

Mr. Nguyen Minh Huan, Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment, affirmed that the agricultural sector would convert central directives into practical action by restructuring toward greater efficiency founded on high technology, digital transformation, plus the establishment of large-scale specialized production zones integrated with value chains satisfying export standards. Emphasis will likewise be placed on advancing the marine economy as well as tourism as engines of growth. This approach will lay the groundwork for Dak Lak not merely to guarantee food security or poverty reduction but also to generate new values, thereby contributing to the national shared prosperity in the digital plus green era.

Translated by HAI LOAN