Porters and rice dealers bring high-quality Cambodian fragrant rice through the border at An Giang Province.November 14, 2008
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)
Competition from cheap high-quality rice from Cambodia has left Mekong Delta farmers with mounting stockpiles of suddenly unpopular low-quality rice.
The farmers from Vietnam’s southern rice bowl have thousands of tons of IR50404 variety rice from their fall-winter crop, harvested in late September.
Farmers had been expecting rice traders to snap up the high-yielding low-quality IR50404 variety rice, which was grown in about 30 percent of the Mekong Delta’s cultivated land.
But rice traders are no longer interested in IR50404, preferring to buy high-quality rice to meet increased domestic demand for fragrant rice.
IR50404 has a 15-25 percent broken grain rate, the cheapest type of rice. High-quality rice only has a 5 percent broken grain rate.
Rice dealers, who used to buy unhusked rice from farmers and resell the husked rice to traders, are now preferring to buy fragrant rice such as Jasmine or Khawdakmali from Cambodia.
Cambodian farmers are selling Jasmine and Khawdakmali rice for VND5,000-VND5,300 (US$0.30-0.32) a kilogram. Cambodian farmers are keen to sell their harvest so they have money for an upcoming moon festival and rice dealers are eager to buy, as they are offered tax breaks on rice traded with Vietnam’s neighbors.
Vietnamese farmers, meanwhile, have only a small amount of Jasmine rice, which is being sold for VND6,900 ($0.40) a kilogram.
Domestic IR50404 is being offered by farmers for as little as VND2,500 ($0.15) a kilogram but “the dealers just show no interest,” said one farmer from Hau Giang Province.
Some dealers have even told farmers, “If you have IR50404, please don’t call. Thanks.”
Over the past 10 days there has been more than 1,000 tons of unhusked fragrant rice a day imported from Cambodia over the border at An Giang Province’s Tinh Bien District, according to a Vietnamese rice dealer.
Cambodian Kim Pou said his team of 50 porters and three other groups of porters had been busy lugging rice across the border in recent weeks.
The change in demand has led to many Mekong Delta farmers considering turning all their fields over to fragrant rice for their winter-spring crop, planted in December and January, according to Ho Minh Khai, director of Co Do Agriculture Company, which owns thousands of hectares of rice field.
In the past, the farmers had not planted high-quality rice varieties because they were considered difficult to grow. But their large stockpiles are making them rethink.
Khai said his company also planned to further invest in growing fragrant rice in a bid to attract more customers.
However, if all farmers do the same it could be a disaster, said Le Van Banh, director of Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta Rice Research Institute (CLRRI).
Banh said Vietnamese fragrant rice wouldn’t be able to compete with Thai fragrant rice in terms of quality and the domestic consumption of this type of rice remains low. “If every farmer grows fragrant rice, who will we sell it to?”
Up to 80 percent of Vietnam’s rice output is consumed by the domestic market, Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Cao Duc Phat told a National Assembly session on Tuesday.
Cambodia and Thailand are growing only one crop of high-quality low-yielding rice a year. However, Vietnam should not try to copy the rice growing methods of its neighbors because “we have a big population and not much farmland and so we have to rely on high-yielding varieties,” Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper quoted Nguyen Tri Ngoc, director of the ministry’s Cultivation Department, as saying.
The best way to maximize yields and profits would be to reserve parts of the region’s rice fields for high-quality rice, said Ngoc.
He said five years ago the ministry started a program to promote this method but farmers had not changed their crop growing habits as “no local officials told them to.”
In August Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung asked food companies and rice traders to buy rice from the Mekong Delta’s farmers for at least VND4,000 (25 cents) a kilogram.
Now that the farmers cannot sell their rice, even at VND2,500 (15 cents), the ministry can do nothing, Ngoc said. “The traders are not sharing the country’s difficulties,” he said.
The farmers from Vietnam’s southern rice bowl have thousands of tons of IR50404 variety rice from their fall-winter crop, harvested in late September.
Farmers had been expecting rice traders to snap up the high-yielding low-quality IR50404 variety rice, which was grown in about 30 percent of the Mekong Delta’s cultivated land.
But rice traders are no longer interested in IR50404, preferring to buy high-quality rice to meet increased domestic demand for fragrant rice.
IR50404 has a 15-25 percent broken grain rate, the cheapest type of rice. High-quality rice only has a 5 percent broken grain rate.
Rice dealers, who used to buy unhusked rice from farmers and resell the husked rice to traders, are now preferring to buy fragrant rice such as Jasmine or Khawdakmali from Cambodia.
Cambodian farmers are selling Jasmine and Khawdakmali rice for VND5,000-VND5,300 (US$0.30-0.32) a kilogram. Cambodian farmers are keen to sell their harvest so they have money for an upcoming moon festival and rice dealers are eager to buy, as they are offered tax breaks on rice traded with Vietnam’s neighbors.
Vietnamese farmers, meanwhile, have only a small amount of Jasmine rice, which is being sold for VND6,900 ($0.40) a kilogram.
Domestic IR50404 is being offered by farmers for as little as VND2,500 ($0.15) a kilogram but “the dealers just show no interest,” said one farmer from Hau Giang Province.
Some dealers have even told farmers, “If you have IR50404, please don’t call. Thanks.”
Over the past 10 days there has been more than 1,000 tons of unhusked fragrant rice a day imported from Cambodia over the border at An Giang Province’s Tinh Bien District, according to a Vietnamese rice dealer.
Cambodian Kim Pou said his team of 50 porters and three other groups of porters had been busy lugging rice across the border in recent weeks.
The change in demand has led to many Mekong Delta farmers considering turning all their fields over to fragrant rice for their winter-spring crop, planted in December and January, according to Ho Minh Khai, director of Co Do Agriculture Company, which owns thousands of hectares of rice field.
In the past, the farmers had not planted high-quality rice varieties because they were considered difficult to grow. But their large stockpiles are making them rethink.
Khai said his company also planned to further invest in growing fragrant rice in a bid to attract more customers.
However, if all farmers do the same it could be a disaster, said Le Van Banh, director of Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta Rice Research Institute (CLRRI).
Banh said Vietnamese fragrant rice wouldn’t be able to compete with Thai fragrant rice in terms of quality and the domestic consumption of this type of rice remains low. “If every farmer grows fragrant rice, who will we sell it to?”
Up to 80 percent of Vietnam’s rice output is consumed by the domestic market, Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Cao Duc Phat told a National Assembly session on Tuesday.
Cambodia and Thailand are growing only one crop of high-quality low-yielding rice a year. However, Vietnam should not try to copy the rice growing methods of its neighbors because “we have a big population and not much farmland and so we have to rely on high-yielding varieties,” Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper quoted Nguyen Tri Ngoc, director of the ministry’s Cultivation Department, as saying.
The best way to maximize yields and profits would be to reserve parts of the region’s rice fields for high-quality rice, said Ngoc.
He said five years ago the ministry started a program to promote this method but farmers had not changed their crop growing habits as “no local officials told them to.”
In August Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung asked food companies and rice traders to buy rice from the Mekong Delta’s farmers for at least VND4,000 (25 cents) a kilogram.
Now that the farmers cannot sell their rice, even at VND2,500 (15 cents), the ministry can do nothing, Ngoc said. “The traders are not sharing the country’s difficulties,” he said.
no tax on Vietnam for rice?
ReplyDeleteno wonder the government feeds off aids. We have idiots in the office.