investment needs, and explore in detail the currently existing local practices of financing such investments. The research process included a desk research for the overall coffee sector development, and subsequently a specific field research in the Dak Nong province of the Vietnam Central Highlands, where coffee is the dominant agricultural commodity. The first part of the report explains the general situation of the coffee sector and coffee farmers in Vietnam. The second part introduces the readers to the specifics of the coffee smallholders in Dak Nong province, including their relationship with the local traders. The third part explains the coffee smallholders' access to finance in Dak Nong, including formal, semi-formal and informal capital markets. In the part four, farmers' most critical production and market risks are explained, including descriptions of existing and suggested risk management strategies for increased profitability and sustainability. The part five explains how the farmers' risks transmit over to the financiers as default risk, and lastly, various financing risk management strategies are described, to explore potential means to improve the quality of financing in the coffee sector, both from the point of view of financiers and the coffee smallholders.

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