A new Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) conducted by Orbia’s precision agriculture business, Netafim, has found that drip irrigation significantly reduces the environmental impact of coffee cultivation while simultaneously boosting yields. The study, carried out over a three-year period (2022–2024) in Vietnam’s Robusta-producing heartland, highlights a scalable pathway for the global coffee industry to meet intensifying ESG requirements.
The research compared traditional overhead sprinkler systems with precision drip irrigation, evaluating the full cultivation cycle from water and energy consumption to chemical input and final crop performance.
The findings indicate that drip irrigation offers a substantial reduction in Global Warming Potential (GWP), primarily driven by more efficient energy use and targeted fertiliser application. Key performance metrics from the Dak Lak province study include:
- Carbon footprint: A nearly 60% reduction in the carbon footprint and GWP of Robusta plantations.
- Water efficiency: A 56% decrease in water consumption, using less than half the water required by traditional overhead methods per tonne of beans.
- Chemical inputs: A 46% reduction in the use of fertilisers and crop-protection chemicals per tonne produced.
- Yield gains: More than 50% higher yield per hectare compared to sprinkler-irrigated farms.
The coffee sector, which supports millions of smallholders across Brazil, Vietnam, and Ethiopia, is currently grappling with record-high Robusta prices and severe climate volatility. As growers expand into new regions where water scarcity is a primary concern, the ability to maintain viable yields with fewer resources has become a commercial necessity.
“Coffee growers today face mounting pressure to increase productivity while managing water scarcity and rising input costs,” said Ram Lisaey, Head of Global Agronomy at Orbia Netafim. “This Life Cycle Assessment reinforces what we see on the ground every day: precision irrigation is a practical, scalable pathway for companies to achieve supply chain resilience and advance their ESG targets.”
The environmental gains are attributed to the “Orbia Netafim Coffee Protocol,” a set of agronomically proven best practices developed over sixty years. The protocol utilises digital farming platforms to monitor irrigation and “fertigation”—the application of fertilisers through the irrigation system—tailored to specific terrains and coffee varieties.
The study is part of Netafim’s broader effort to provide crop-specific environmental data, following similar successful assessments in corn and potato cultivation. As consumer demand for ethically sourced coffee grows, such data-backed methodologies are becoming vital for large-scale producers looking to verify the sustainability of their global supply chains.
