Rice farmers look for bumper export crop
29 | 09 | 2007
Rice exports from Viet Nam are set to surpass their targets of between 4 - 4.5 million tonnes for the year, in large part due to increased productivity and growth in the world market.
Farmers from the Mekong Delta that are responsible for over 50 percent of the country's entire rice crop have had major successes in combating rice diseases. The increased productivity and new disease resistant growing techniques will allow them to harvest between 6-8 tonnes of rice per ha for the winter-autumn crop, said Nguyen Tri Ngoc, Director of the Cultivation Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The growing quality demands of international markets and a surge in market prices are also helping to boost rice exports. According to agricultural experts, rice prices for the 2005-06 years soared by 35 percent over the previous five-year period. Rice exports from Viet Nam have increased by more than 40 USD per tonne due to improvements in rice quality and the price gap between regional neighbours such as Thailand and Vietnam has continued to be narrowed.
However observers have been quick to point out that agricultural and rice-processing sectors must map out long-term measures to continue improving rice quality in order to capitalise on current market momentum.-
VietNam News Agency