Government buys one million tonnes of summer-autumn rice

Deputy prime minister Nguyen Sinh Hung has ordered relevant ministries and food enterprises to buy one million tonnes of rice in the summer-autumn crop for temporary storage.

According to the government, rice must be purchased from July 15 to September 15 as farmers have been grappling with difficulties to sell their rice due to falling prices.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade is tasked with working with other related ministries and the Vietnam Food Association (VFA) to designate food companies to buy the already harvested rice from farmers.

The government has asked the State Bank of Vietnam to ensure 100 percent interest rate support for food firms to take out loans to finance their rice buying and storage. This financial support lasts from July 15 to November 15 this year.

The State Bank of Vietnam will assign commercial banks to supply loans for food enterprises.

According to the Vietnam Food Association, most farmers in the Mekong Delta, the country’s key rice growing area, have started summer-autumn rice cultivation on a total area of some 1.6 million hectares.

The association has predicted rice consumption in the third quarter of this year will be harder than in the previous two quarters because of lower export prices.

“The government move will help farmers sell their rice quickly. However, rice trading enterprises still have difficulty buying the food staple because most of the Mekong Delta provinces have yet to make known their rice production cost,” said Huynh Minh Hue, general secretary of VFA.

He told the Daily on Thursday that Can Tho City was the first locality in the delta to announce the cost of rice.

Phung Van Truc, a farmer who has five hectares under summer-autumn rice cultivation in Thanh Hoa District, Long An Province, told the Daily on Thursday that he was selling his rice for only 3,000 dong per kilogram.

“Given a higher production cost than in the last crop, I think a profit-making price should be at least 5,000 dong per kilogram,” he said.

Though many farmers in Thanh Hoa, Vinh Hung and Tan Hung of Long An Province are in the harvest season, they are unhappy with the slow rice consumption, Truc said.

He said bad weather had eaten into the quality of rice this crop which is 30 percent worse than in the last crop.

Earlier, the government assigned ministries and some 30 food enterprises to buy some one million tonnes of winter-spring rice for storage to help rice growers.

VFA said the total rice harvest in this crop was expected at about two million tonnes.

Saigon Times

Tags: Vietnam rice, Vietnam Rice prices