VN encourages Viet companies to lease land, grow rice in Cambodia, and export it to VN

Farmers, wearing conical hats, place rice grain into sacks at Co Do farm in Can Tho Province

Vietnam to halt rice exports until July as sales exceed target

Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

Vietnam, the world’s second-biggest rice shipper, will not sign export contracts for delivery until June, after shipments in the first half of the year beat the target, according to the Vietnam Food Association.

The association will only register contracts for delivery between July and September, according to a statement on its website. Export volumes for the first half were not provided.

“We don’t want to be in a situation where we export too much in the first half and not have enough rice for contracts after that,” Huynh Minh Hue, the association’s acting general secretary, said by telephone from Ho Chi Minh City. “It is important to balance shipments throughout the year.”

Vietnam plans to raise rice exports in 2009 by 6.4 percent to five million tons as favorable weather aids the nation’s largest harvest of the year and adequate reserves enable increased sales, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Diep Kinh Tan said on February 11.

More than five million tons of rice will be harvested this month and in March in half of the 1.8 million hectares (4.44 million acres) of paddy fields in the Mekong Delta, agriculture minister Cao Duc Phat said on February 10.

The country also plans to lease land to grow rice in Cambodia to counter smuggling of the grain across the border, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported, citing a report by Doan Ngoc Pha, deputy director of the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of An Giang Province.

Vietnamese companies will be encouraged to lease land in Cambodia and will be allowed to export rice to Vietnam, he said in the report.

Smugglers bring in hundreds of metric tons of rice each day from Cambodia, the newspaper reported without giving details.

Vietnamese rice farmers are hurt by cheap, high quality rice from Cambodia

Rice farmers need practical solutions

Saturday, November 15, 2008
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

Vietnamese rice farmers are being hurt again.

The news about how cheap, high quality rice from Cambodia is suddenly being transported through the border at An Giang Province at an alarming rate reaffirms that the country’s farmers are very vulnerable.

In the fierce competition against farmers in Thailand and other countries where farmers are supported by innovative farming technologies, it seems as if Vietnamese farmers are in this fight alone.

Farmers from Vietnam’s rice bowl are now stuck with thousands of tons of IR50404 variety rice harvested from their fall-winter crop.

They thought rice dealers would be interested and were not expecting them to buy fragrant rice like Jasmine or Khaodawkmali for only VND5,000- 5,300 (US$0.29-0.31) per kilogram.

Here’s part of the problem: Vietnamese prefer high-quality rice while its domestic farmers often grow the variety that simply doesn’t taste as good, such as the IR50404.

Domestic rice companies often import better quality rice and then resell it.

In Thailand, the price for its Thai White Rice Grade B dipped from $770 per ton in August to $720 in September and then to the current $580.

Then countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia have refocused to increase production in a bid to meet domestic consumption and prevent future food shortages.

A dealer told The Bangkok Post that Thailand has had trouble selling rice in the Philippines since that country was already flooded with at least 600,000 tons of Vietnamese rice.

That’s why the Thai government had to announce at the end of September its plan to buy 8 million tons of unhusked rice at above market prices.

A kilogram of Khaodawkmali 105 unhusked rice is being sold at VND7,800; white rice at VND6,800 and Thai glutinous rice at VND5,830 per kilo.

Perhaps the amount that was transported to Vietnam is leftover from the unsold stockpiles in the Thai government’s buyout plan offered to its farmers.

There has been also criticism over Vietnamese farmers continuing to growing IR50404 rice which has a 15- 25 percent broken grain rate.

IR50404 is easier to grow and yields higher output, unlike the Jasmin 825 variety. So it’s understandable why Vietnamese farmers prefer IR50404.

We often saw officials suggesting that farmers not grow IR50404 but who can guarantee that the rice will sell faster if they choose to grow higher-quality varieties?

Farmers are left with no choice and must go with something stable.

For domestic food export companies: why not localize an area in which farmers can grow rice of preferable quality?

For the government: why not actively bring our rice to customers, no matter where they are located?

Thailand brings its unhusked rice to be processed in La Camarque in France. They are working on packaging and bringing their rice to Europe’s supermarkets.

We can do the same. Our companies in the seafood industry have been able to bring our products to Europe? Why are we not doing that with rice?

By Vo Tong Xuan

*Vo Tong Xuan is the former rector of An Giang University. He was recently awarded the Dioscoro L. Umali Achievement Award for Agricultural Development.

Cross border trade shows VN demand for high quality rice

Motor-tricycles loaded with large bags of Cambodian and Thai rice park near Xuan To bridge

15/11/2008

VietNamNet Bridge - Long lines of motor-tricycles loaded with large bags of rice are parked near the Xuan To Bridge in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang that lies on the border with Cambodia. These tricycles have transported rice from Cambodia into Vietnam and are waiting for traders to collect it.

On the Vinh Te canal, ships loaded with rice from Cambodia are berthed close together. At least five large purchase points have recently been set up near the canal to purchase rice from Cambodian traders for supplying local markets.

Each point has its own team of stevedores. Po Tha, a Cambodian stevedore, says, “Our team consists of 30 members. We carry over 300 tons of rice from storehouses to ships every day.”

“It’s estimated that 1,500 tons of rice are transported to An Giang Province from Cambodia through Tinh Bien border gate daily,” says Giang Lam, deputy director of the Tinh Bien Border Customs. “Most of them are Khaodak Mali, a long- grain rice variety from Thailand and a small- grain rice variety from Cambodia. Both are good varieties of rice whose flavor, aroma and softness suit the taste of the local people.”

In fact, traders from provinces throughout the Mekong Delta, southern granary of Vietnam, flock to the purchase points to buy rice. Khaodak Mali is sold at VND5.300 a kilo and the Cambodian small-grain rice at VND 5,000 per kilo. After they are unhusked, the rice will be distributed through wholesale channels to retailers in the provinces of Tien Giang, Long An, Dong Thanh, and Can Tho; and in HCM City.

Tran Thanh Hao, a rice retailer in Tinh Bien, says farmers in the Mekong Delta grow high- yielding rice like IR50401 and 3217 to supply the local market, but now more and more Vietnamese consumers buy Thai and Cambodian rice because of both their taste and prices.

In fact, Tinh Bien is not the only border gate through which a large volume of Thailand and Cambodian rice are transported to Vietnam everyday. Thousands of tons are finding their way into Vietnamese markets through other Southwestern border gates including Khanh Binh and Vinh Xuong in An Giang Province, Thuong Phuoc in Dong Thap Province and Ha Tien in Kien Giang Province.

The imports from Thailand and Cambodia prove there is a large demand in the local market for high quality, tasty rice.

However, the nation’s famed rice granary, Mekong Delta, grows high quality rice for export and high-yielding rice for the local market, while consumers are demanding rice of better quality.

If the national agricultural sector can not supply rice of the quality desired by consumers, they will have little choice but to seek other sources in other countries. Consumers can not be forced to eat rice of lower quality all the time, market observers say.

Huynh The Nang, deputy chairman of the An Giang Province People’s Committee, says that agricultural production in the Mekong delta so far has only paid attention to growing high-grade rice for export, and that it is time for the provincial authorities shifted their attention to local demand.

He added that relevant authorities in the agricultural and trading sectors should reconsider the structure of export and local markets for rice and work together to prepare a proper plan to boost production in the coming winter-spring crop to serve both markets.

Cambodia has a surplus of 2 million tons of rice for export [to Vietnam mainly]

Monday, December 17, 2007
Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

A high ranking government official indicated that based on this year’s estimates, Cambodia has a surplus of about 2 million tons of rice for export.

Chan Sarun, the minister of agriculture, forestry and fishery, told the Cuban No. 1 vice-minister of economy, during a meeting in Phnom Penh last week, that based on the results of the 2007-2008 rice production, Cambodia has a surplus of about 2 million tons of rice for export, after subtracting out the amount of rice needed for consumption and for use as next year’s crop.

Chan Sarun added that, currently, farmers are busy harvesting, and about 40% of the crop has been harvested on 2,241,020 hectares of planted lands. He also told the Cuban minister that, along with the harvest, the farmers are also getting ready to plant dry season rice and other crops.

According to a report from the ministry of agriculture, up until 13 December, Cambodia harvests about 1.87 million tons of rice more that last year. The average rice yield is 2.061 tons per hectare. At the same time, Cambodia also sees along the an export of rice to VietnamCambodian-Vietnamese borders in Romeas Hek border gate, Svay Rieng province. During the second week of rice export to Vietnam, and up until 13 December, the amount of rice export is 935 tons, this is an increase of 186 tons from the previous week. Middle men bought the rice at an average cost of 950 riels (~$0.25) per kilogram.

At the same time, the ministry of agriculture hopes that the 2007-2008 rice production will be better than last year due to a change in attitude of the farmers.