The Dak Lak Rubber Company (Dakruco) plans to complete cultivation of various cash crops, particularly rubber, on 10,000 ha in 2010 and begin building a latex processing facility.

The company has over the last five years been planting rubber on 9,000ha, cashew on 700ha, coffee on 150ha and other crops on 80ha.

In 2010, Dakruco will start building a latex processing facility with the capacity of 10,000 tonnes a year. The facility will tap into the latex production from its cultivation area at the beginning of 2011.

In 2005, Dakruco invested about 30 million USD in planting industrial crops on 10,000ha in the Lao provinces of Attapeu. Saravan and Champask under an agreement between the governments of Vietnam and Laos .

Before carrying out the plan to develop rubber plantations, Dakruco worked closely with farmers and taught them techniques to grow rubber trees.

The company divided the farmers into three groups. Farming households that already had capital and the know how to set up a rubber plantation were allotted 10 to 50ha, while those with modest capital and little knowledge of cultivating cash crops received three to five hectares. Farmers with no capital were given 1.7 to two hectares to work on the rubber plantations.

The households also cultivated corn, rice and beans on arable land in the area.

Besides providing saplings from Vietnam, Dakruco also set up two nursery gardens for cultivating saplings at Farm 1 and Farm 2 in Saravan and Champasak provinces./.