The rice trader

The Hanoitimes – Vietnam is expected to export more than six million tons of rice this year.

Vietnam’s 5% broken rice price has risen to around US$500-505 per ton in early 2021, the highest since December 2011.

Rice for exports at Can Tho province. Photo: Dung Minh

“Such a high price indicates high quality of Vietnamese rice,” said Vice Chairman of Vietnam Food Association (VFA) Do Ha Nam, pointing out growing demand for rice from major markets, including the Philippines, as a key factor for higher prices.

Since the beginning of 2021, major rice buyers of the region, including China, Bangladesh and the Philippines are importing a large amount of rice. Meanwhile, Thailand, one of the world’s largest rice exporters, could see its export volume reduced this year given an appreciation of the Bath value.

Tran Thanh Hai, deputy director of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT)’s Import and Export Department, expected the current Covid-19 situation would be a major factor keeping high demand for rice in the global market.

Sharing the same view, General Director of Trung An Hi-tech Farming Company Pham Thanh Binh noted the outlook for Vietnam rice exports remain bright thanks to the country’s recent signing of new free trade agreements.

Under the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), EU country members have committed to allocating tariff quota of nearly 10,000 tons of rice for Vietnam in 2021, while the UK-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (UKVFTA) would reduce import tariff for Vietnamese rice into the UK to 0%.

To ensure sustainable rice export in the future, agricultural expert Hoang Trong Thuy suggested local producers should focus on product quality with high value (aromatic rice, Japonica rice) and study the target market’s preferences to ensure efficiency in the trading process.

“Otherwise, Vietnam would face difficulties in competing with low quality rice from India or Pakistan,” added Mr. Thuy.

This year, the VFA forecast Vietnam to export more than six million tons of rice. In 2020, the country exported 6.15 million tons of rice worth US$3 billion, down 3.5% year-on-year in volume but up 9.3% in value.

As of January 18, the MoIT has issued rice export licenses for 205 traders.

The information was released at a meeting organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on the agricultural production in the early 2021 season on February 18.

Presently, traders are proposing VND6,800-VND7,000 per kilogram of high quality unhusked rice; VND7,000- VND7,500 a kilogram of fragrant unhusked rice and VND7,500-VND8,000 per kilogram of sticky rice. With such prices, farmers enjoy profit of approximately VND30 million (US$ 1,301) a hectare of paddy. As scheduled, farmers in the Mekong Delta will harvest 550,000 total hectares of paddy in the end of February.

Le Thanh Tung, Vice Head of the Department of Crop Production under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that the Mekong Delta region has planted more than 1.5 million hectares of paddy for the winter-spring season, a decrease of 30,000 hectares compared to prior winter-spring season with productivity of nearly 69.31 quintal per hectare of paddy and an output of 10.5 million tons.

Associate Professor Tran Ba Hoang, Head of the Southern Institute of Water Resources Research, noted that saltwater penetration is 6- 13 kilometer farer than previous years. In Ham Luong River, Co Chien River, and Hau River, saltwater can intrude 56km, 51 km, and 45 km further inland respectively.

It has been forecast that the coastal areas in the region will face shortage of fresh water in the end of February and March causing difficulties for production and residents’ daily life. Around 37,800 hectares of winter-spring season and 40,000 hectares of fruit orchards in coastal districts in the region will suffer water shortage.

Therefore, the Southern Institute of Water Resources Research proposed provinces in the Mekong Delta to reserve fresh water for the dry season as well as re-structure agricultural plan appropriately especially in coastal districts. Local administrations should quickly build dams to fight against saltwater intrusion and reserve water in canals and irrigation ditches for fruit orchards.

Moreover, local administrators should keep an eye on drought and salinity development to have timely announcement for farmers in a bid to avoid losses.

Agriculture Deputy Minister Le Minh Hoan said that in the upcoming time, the Mekong Delta needs a long-term strategy for agricultural production with focus on linking 13 departments of agriculture and rural development to share experience in battle against drought and saltwater intrusion.

Additionally, he said that a center to introduce agricultural products of the Mekong Delta should be set up in Hanoi in order to increase consumption. Presently, Dong Thap Province is the first locality in the Mekong Delta which has built a center to introduce agricultural products in Vietnam’s capital city having good sign at first.

The Hanoitimes – The restructuring aims to cut production costs and increase income for farmers.

Vietnam has gained positive changes in production and consumption of rice in its four-year project on restructuring rice industry, but there is still a lot of works to be done to achieve the goal of sustainable development and increase income for Vietnamese rice growers.

The Vietnamese rice industry need cutting production costs and improving income for farmers. Photo: Tung Nguyen

The statement was released at the conference on implementing the rice industry restructuring project until 2025, with a vision to 2030, which was organized by the Department of Crop Production, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on December 25 in Ho Chi Minh City.

Speaking at the conference, Mr. Nguyen Nhu Cuong, Director of the Department of Crop Production said that some targets under the rice industry restructuring project such as ensuring food security, output and export turnover have been implemented. Meanwhile, others such as raising income for rice growers and building the national brand for Vietnamese rice still have not been fulfilled, he said.

Mr. Tran Xuan Dinh, technical consultant for the project, said that since the restructuring of rice production, although the paddy acreage has been declining year after year, production has remained stable at between 43 and 44 million tons per year. The sector has not only ensured food security, but also exports between 6 and 7 million tons of rice per year with a turnover of around US$ 3 billion.

Along with the reduction of the paddy acreage, the rice strain structure has changed positively, meeting the market demand. In the key rice production areas of the Mekong River Delta, the rate of using special aromatic rice varieties and high-quality rice increased from 2%-6%.

The proportion of high-quality rice accounts for nearly 80% of the export rice output. As a result, the average export rice price this year is usually $50 per ton, higher than the previous year, and sometimes higher than the Thai rice price in the same type.

However, the rice restructuring strategy still has some issues, of which, the land use planning of each region has not been implemented thoroughly, the conversion from rice cultivated land to other crops is still slow; among others.

The productive organization lacks sustainability. The overuse of fertilizers and pesticides increases costs and negatively affects the environment. Sale of rice depends on traders with unstable prices and high risks, Mr. Dinh said. The quality of rice is not homogeneous, which affects the value and reputation of Vietnamese paddy.

To tackle the above limitations, the Department of Cultivation continues implementing the project in the direction of improving efficiency and sustainable development.

From the business view of point, the representative from Loc Troi Group shared his view that the rice industry restructuring is only effective when it helps cutting production costs and improving income for farmers.

Dr. Bui Ba Bong, former Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that to effectively restructure the rice industry, it is necessary to synchronously implement three groups of solutions which are institutions and policies; science and technology development and investment in infrastructure.

HCM City (VNS/VNA) – Farmers in the Mekong Delta have had a bumper harvest of giant river prawns at good prices because of favourable weather conditions and high market demand.

Under a special cultivation model, farmers breed the giant prawn and grow rice on the same field without using chemicals. The prawns eat natural food in the rice fields.

In Soc Trang province, shrimp–rice farmers are now entering the peak harvest season.

Le Viet Thang, who has a one-hectare rice field in Soc Trang’s Phuoc Long District, said he had a rice yield of seven tonnes per hectare, higher than in the past.

The profit from harvesting prawn and rice this year was about 50 million VND (2,150 USD) per hectare, he said.

Tran Van An, Deputy Chairman of the Phuoc Long district People’s Committee, said the rainy season ended late, so there was enough freshwater for the rice fields.

Local farmers used quality seeds and followed proper plant scheduling, which helped to increase yields.

The environmentally friendly shrimp – rice model reduces production costs, increases yield and profit.

In the rainy season, Bac Lieu has nearly 36,000ha of fields allocated for the shrimp – rice farming model, up nearly 3,000ha against the previous rainy season.

Of the figure, farmers have harvested more than 20,000ha so far.

The cultivation model has an average prawn yield of 250 – 300kg per hectare per crop and 4 – 4.5 tonnes of rice per hectare per crop, according to Bac Lieu authorities.

In Ca Mau province, farmers in Thoi Binh district, which is the province’s largest giant river prawn producer, has about 12,000ha of giant river prawn – rice farming fields.

Nguyen Huu Canh, who lives in Tan Bang commune’s Kenh 6 hamlet in Thoi Binh,  has harvested giant river prawns in his one-hectare rice field and earned a profit of 20 million VND (862 USD).

He began to release about 20,000 giant river prawn fry into rice fields in June this year and harvested about 250kg of giant river prawns after breeding for six months, he said.

Huynh Van Dung, head of the Kenh 6 Hamlet Farmers Association, said: “The model has high economic efficiency, is easy to implement and is sustainable, so many farmers have done it.”

Farmers buy giant river prawn fry in Ca Mau and other provinces such as An Giang province and Can Tho city for breeding, he said.

Traders buy the market-size giant river prawns at a price of 100,000 – 130,000 VND (4.3 – 5.6 USD) a kilogramme.

The price may increase significantly near Tet (Lunar New Year), which falls on February 5 this year, according to traders.

In Tra Vinh province, farmers began harvesting giant river prawns in rice fields early this month.

Chau Thanh, Cau Ngang, Tra Cu and Duyen Hai districts and Duyen Hai town are Tra Vinh’s major giant river prawn breeding areas.

Chau Thanh has more than 1,100ha of rice fields in which farmers breed all male giant river prawns, the largest in the province.

Nguyen Thanh Thuong, Deputy Chairman of the Long Hoa communal People’s Committee in Chau Thanh, said this is the sixth year that many farmers in the commune have bred giant river prawn and organic rice on one field.

Many aquaculture farmers have also switched from breeding two black-tiger shrimp crops a year to one black-tiger shrimp crop and one giant river prawn crop a year, he said.

Investors who produce shrimp seeds, including male giant river prawn seeds, can take advantage of the province’s preferential policies.

The model of breeding all male giant river prawns yields a higher profit than that of breeding mixed gender giant river prawns. The former has a higher survival and growth rate.-VNS/VNA

VNA

HCM City (VNS/VNA) – Farmer Le Van Chin from the southern province of Long An recently livestreamed an advert about his cooperative’s red-flesh dragon fruit on his Facebook page.

“Hi everyone! Here is the dragon fruit garden of Que My Thanh Cooperative. After 25 days of harvest, it has a thin peel and red flesh. Rest assured we never use any harmful chemicals to spray the fruit. We guarantee that it is healthy and tasty,” he told viewers.

“I livestream various stages such as farming, harvesting and packaging to create consumer confidence about my product,” he said.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Chin was one of thousands of farmers who decided to sell directly on social network sites such as Facebook, Zalo and others.

No official statistics about the number of farmers using livestreaming exist, but it has become increasingly common. Livestreams on social networks and e-commerce platforms in Vietnam have attracted hundreds of thousands of views a day.

Nguyen Duc Tung, general secretary of the Vietnam Digital Agricultural Association, said that more farmers were selling online directly to consumers without intermediaries, which has helped lower prices.

To do business online, farmers had learned more about photography, sales and communication skills to engender trust among consumers, he said.

According to Nguyen Manh Tan, marketing director of Haravan, which provides e-commerce and retail solutions, farmers only need a smartphone and Facebook account to conduct a livestream.

Selling on Facebook or Zalo is easier than on e-commerce platforms, which have more requirements such as packaging specifications and legal conditions.

Since packaging, storage and transport can be done better by distributors, farmers often livestream their products directly from their fields or gardens to distributors.

Despite online trends, a number of high-quality, affordable agricultural products that meet export standards are still absent on major e-commerce platforms such as Tiki, Sendo and Voso.

One of the main reasons for the low consumption of “clean” agricultural products on e-commerce platforms is the life cycle of the product.

Vu Kim Hanh, chairwoman of the High Quality Vietnamese Product Business Association, said that fresh agricultural products were less popular on e-commerce sites because the life cycle was too short.

Nguyen Dac Viet Dung, chairman of the board of directors of Sen Do Joint-Stock Company, said if the life cycles could be extended, buyers would feel more secure about purchasing organic or clean products on e-commerce sites.

Digital transformation

Farmer Chin, who is the director of the Que My Thanh Dragon Fruit Cooperative in Long An Province’s Tan Tru District, decided to shift his family’s four-hectare red-flesh dragon fruit garden to a natural direction without using chemicals, and embrace digital technology.

“I have gradually shifted to organic fertiliser and bio-products to grow quality dragon fruit and use efficient irrigation methods like automatic spraying and drip irrigation to save water.”

Chin is one of the partner farmers of Food Connect, a project of the Food Network Joint-Stock Company, that aims to link farmers with consumers through technology platforms.

Under the project, training sessions on e-commerce and transparent production processes are provided to farmers to help them save costs by avoiding a middleman, thereby reducing prices for consumers.

The cooperative, which has 22 hectares of cultivated dragon fruit, sells its products to fruit chains across the country.

“Despite their somewhat ugly appearance and shape, the fruit is popular with local consumers because of the quality. Also the first batch of dragon fruit was exported to Dubai,” Chin said. “Consumers can scan the QR code on the product to know the exact origin.”

Dr Tu Minh Thien, rector at Van Hien University in Ho Chi Minh City, said the use of advanced technology had contributed to nearly 35 percent of the growth value of agriculture in Vietnam in the last five years.

In the field of irrigation, drip, sprinkler and underground irrigation systems are being used on different terrains, making watering more accessible. Such systems are typically attached to a flow controller which provides fertiliser for crops.

Techniques from the biotechnology field are also being used in farming, such as gene mapping of plants. Advanced techniques such as ELISA and PCR are used in the diagnosis and identification of viral diseases of plants.

In wet-rice production, biotechnology is also being used to breed rice varieties, with slow-soluble fertilisers and saltwater warning systems in Soc Trang, Dong Thap, and Tra Vinh provinces.

“Biotechnology applications are an effective solution for sustainable agriculture and for limiting the impact of climate change,” Dr Thien said.

Blockchain is another technology that is being used in product traceability and supply chain management in Long An, Tien Giang, Dong Thap and other provinces.

In Dong Thap and Ben Tre provinces, technological advances have improved the monitoring of automatic irrigation systems by quickly identifying the watering level of a tree, for example, and alerting farmers to the exact location of the water shortage area.

The systems, which use GPS and automatic routing to cover an entire plantation, are mounted on drones that fly 20-30 metres above crop fields, such as banana or fruit tree plantations.

Despite these advances, high-tech applications in Vietnam’s agriculture have not been widely implemented on a household scale, and most are being used at large enterprises and cooperatives due to the high investment costs and unstable market prices of fruits and vegetables.

Large enterprises that have invested in these applications include Vingroup, PAN Group, Hoang Anh Gia Lai, and Loc Troi Group, among others.

They offer farmers and cooperatives guidance on production processes, train farmers who want to produce clean products, and provide technical and seed support.

The enterprises also aim to improve quality control during processing and before harvesting, and to support product brand development.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuc, a member of the executive committee of the Vietnam Digital Agriculture Association, said that digital transformation in agriculture must begin with farmers.

In supply chains, each farmer must be a “trader” who understands the market. The stakeholders of the chains should regularly communicate with each other to maintain sustainable and long-term cooperation.

Thực has been working with farmers to develop an agricultural e-Journal, create QR codes, and promote the use of traceability of origin and geographical indication (GIs).

Dr. Nguyen Quoc Toan, director of the Agro Processing and Market Development Authority, said that digital transformation would ensure transparency in the market.

“Farmers must be the key players to ensure the success of digital transformation in agriculture,” he said.

Benefits will include lower production costs, less waste, less water consumption and better quality, according to the director.

Advances in machinery in recent years have helped to expand the scale, speed and productivity of farm equipment, leading to more efficient cultivation of more land. Seeds, irrigation and fertilisers have vastly improved as well, helping farmers increase yields.

Artificial intelligence (AI), analytics, connected sensors and other emerging technologies further increase yields, improve the efficiency of water and other inputs, and build sustainability and resilience.

Automation technology, drones, spectral imagery and the use of robots and unmanned aerial vehicles also help to reduce operational expenditures and labour costs.

In addition, increased use of livestock biometrics ensures maintenance of livestock health and has a direct impact on the increase in yield of dairy products.

Challenges

In coming years, the agricultural sector is set to face serious challenges. Growing populations, rising affluence and urbanisation, for example, have increased the threat to global food security.

The world population is expected to increase by 2.2 billion by 2050 and demand for food will rise by 50 percent, according to reports from global organisations.

During this period, climate change is expected to reduce harvests by 17 percent, while arable land will shrink by 20 percent.

A more resilient food future will rely on agricultural research and development, and better alignment of government finance and incentives for farmers who use sustainable and climate-smart production processes.

It will also rely on a steep change in access to information, innovative technologies, and finance to enhance the resilience of millions of small-scale farming households whose livelihoods are most critically impacted by climate change.

Productivity and a sufficient supply of quality food must increase, while natural resources remain protected.

Nguyen Khac Minh Tri, CEO of Mimosa Technology Ltd., said that new applications in agriculture such as IoT (Internet of Things), blockchain, big data and AI would open up a new era in which new practices would produce more food with fewer resources and without harming the environment.

However, the transformation progress remains slow in Vietnam, according to Tri. Most applications that are now in the pilot phase aim to prove the benefits to farmers and other stakeholders in agricultural supply chains.

Although some farmers are now able to manage irrigation on smartphones with IoT solutions or mark their brand with QR codes for traceability on blockchain platforms, this is only happening with a few early adopters.

Application of technology is in the early stages, and more time is needed to transform technology from “good-to-have” to “must-have”, according to Tri.

Since more than 70 percent of Vietnam’s agricultural products are from 22 million smallholder farmers, local agri-businesses should not depend solely on major corporations to promote innovative solutions.

Solutions must be identified for smallholder farmers to apply technology, but smallholder farmers entering mass markets is not an easy task because farmers have used the same practices for thousands of years. Changing their mindsets will take a long time, according to Tri.

One of the main obstacles is limited capital, because switching to high-tech agriculture requires a considerable up-front investment, experts have said.

Another major problem is market and consumer confidence. Building brands and winning customer confidence are both essential for Vietnamese brands so they can take advantage of major export markets like the EU under the new EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).

Farmer Chin from Long An Province, who embraced technology early, is also aware of the obstacles that must be overcome.

“Farmers are willing to embrace digital transformation and switch to natural farming as long as stable sales are ensured. I will continue to do livestreaming so that everyone can understand how dragon fruit is being grown without chemicals.”/.

VNA