#Vietnam - 2018 rice export to hit 6m tonnes

HÀNỘI — Việtnam’s rice export volume in 2018 is expected to increase by 400,000 tonnes from 2017 to reach 6 million tonnes, due to increased demand from Southeast Asia, especially from the Philippines, with China expected to be the country’s largest rice market.

The Vietnam Food Association (VFA), in a report earlier in January, said countries in Southeast Asia will import a large amount of rice from Việt Nam, helping boost the country’s turnover this year.

The VFA said Indonesia will import rice from Việt Nam and Thailand again in 2018 to increase reserves, as Indonesia’s rice price has been rising, almost double the floor price.

Similarly, the National Food Board of the Philippines approved of up to 250,000 tonnes of imported rice to offset declining inventories, due to unfavourable weather in 2017.

These developments are encouraging for Việt Nam’s rice export market, said the VFA’s report, with export price of 5 per cent broken rice rising to US$400 per tonne from $390.

Domestic rice price also increased, with the average price between to $267 to $293 per tonne as of January’s end, having increased by $13 to $15 per tonne from December 2017’s price.

According to the VFA’s data, throughout 2017, the country exported 5.7 million tonnes of rice worth $2.54 billion.

As mentioned by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s 2018 world rice production forecast, issued late 2017, the main factor behind this year’s rice trade expansion is increased output from Việt Nam, Pakistan and Myanmar, three of the world’s top six rice exporting countries.

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The USDA’s report stated that though 2017 global rice output fell by 20 per cent from 2016’s number, as a result of weak outlook for grain products, long, heavy rainfall and spring floods and other unfavourable weather, meaning there should be positive signals from traditional rice importing markets in Southeast Asia in early 2018.

In Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, whose rice crops were heavily influenced by harsh weather, demand for rice imports will also increase in 2018. Rising import demand is supported by increased purchasing power in Africa and the Middle East, while China continues to be a leading importer of rice from neighbouring regions.

As such, Việt Nam will witness an increase in revenue from rice exports to several large consumer markets.

According to the Department of Crop Production under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in early January 2018, the Mekong Delta’s rice producers harvested 860,000 hectares of rice, with an average yield of 5.3 tonnes per hectare.

Nonetheless, problems remain for national rice production, the majority of which stem from farmers’ ignorance.

Talking to Vietnam News Agency during a late 2017 agricultural conference in the Mekong Delta, Võ Tòng Xuân, former vice rector of Cần Thơ University and rice expert, emphasised growing competition in global rice markets.

Xuân warned that Việt Nam needs to find ways to make its rice exports stand out if it wants to achieve export targets.

Regarding export rice quality, he was convinced that since rice merchants often mix different batches from different farmers into one large batch, there is virtually no way to completely track the origin of any batch.

Without clear origin, there are no certain product quality controls, and no major national rice brand for Việt Nam, Xuân added.

He suggested issuing contracts between rice farmers and processing plants for sustainable production, via agricultural co-operatives instead of relying on middlemen.

Xuân also said that there remain regulations acting as barriers to small and medium enterprises from entering the rice market. Exporting low quality rice and fragrant rice without a brand name is becoming increasingly difficult for Việt Nam, especially in finding niche markets to sell several thousand tonnes. 

 

Source - Vietnam News

Seed giant East-West opens #Cambodia branch.

East-West Seed Group, one of the world’s largest vegetable seed companies, has stepped up its presence in Cambodia by officially launching a local branch and taking over distribution operations in the Kingdom to better address local market conditions, a company representative said yesterday.

Heng Rithea, country representative of East-West Seed (EWS) for Cambodia, said the company’s business model was focused on serving the needs of smallholder farmers, the vast majority of whom produce vegetables on plots smaller than a hectare. 

“Smallholder farmers can increase the yield and quality of their crops with improved seed varieties,” he said. 

EWS began providing seeds to Cambodia in 2005 through a local distributor. In 2009 the Thai-based company expanded to knowledge-transfer activities in cooperation with the government and German development agency GIZ, training farmers in Siem Riep on improved techniques that result in higher productivity. This was followed by other partnerships with the government and development organisations in other parts of the country.

Rithea said a stronger local presence would help improve the company’s understanding of the local market and allow it to develop new seed varieties under local farming conditions to ensure suitability and adaptability for Cambodian farmers.

“We breed for what the market wants,” he said. “We understand the local needs and see what is happening in the market and [in people’s] diets.”

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He said innovation was crucial to raising the standards of the agricultural industry, adding that EWS invests around 15 percent of its turnover into research and development.

“This allows us to develop tropical vegetable seeds that help farmers grow better crops,” he said.

Rithea explained that Cambodia’s agricultural industry faces numerous challenges, including a hot, humid climate subject to heavy rains and extreme weather conditions.

“This kind of environment results in high pest and disease pressure,” he said. “Farmers also lack access to technology, basic infrastructure like farm-to-market roads, irrigation and post-harvest facilities and lack of access to credit and finance.”

He said another challenge here was the amount of unregistered seeds that flow into the country from different channels and which, while sold at very competitive prices, are of dubious quality.

“Some farmers who used those seeds without any information or warranty wasted lots of time, money and labour as the seeds did not germinate or provided low yields,” he said. 

Cambodian farmers are increasingly turning to specialised companies to provide high-quality seeds for their crops, according to Khan Samban, director of the Industrial Crops Department at the Ministry of Agriculture, who said 21 registered seed companies now supply the local market.

“All the registered seed companies are growing currently on the potential to increase the productivity of farmers,” he said.

Author: Cheng Sokhorng - PhnomPenhPost