The brown plant hopper and rice plant diseases are ravaging crops in Mekong Delta region, sending paddy prices to increase substantially and threatening next year’s exports.
Over the last several months, the rice price has increased about 17 per cent, from some VND2,400 to VND2,900 per kilo (about $0.15-0.18), which traders regard as a record rise in 30 recent years.
In the last summer-fall rice crop, the pesky brown hopper and rice plant diseases struck roughly 500,000 hectares of rice fields, resulting in an output reduction of 0.09 ton per hectare.
The Trade Ministry predicts that the price would continue rising in the coming months as demand outstrips supply.
The high price in the last winter-spring crop prompted farmers to sell off stocks without keeping rice in storage.
Concerning rice exports, the price is forecasted to remain high and even keep rising as exporters like Indonesia and India are enduring droughts, causing considerable output reduction.
In addition, African countries have great demand for rice imports as productivity this year on the continent only satisfies around 45 per cent of needs.
According to the Vietnam Food Association, the domestic supply can satisfy rice export outputs this year but the concern is whether rice sources would be adequate for next year’s exports.
In a conference on the issue held last Saturday, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung instructed local authorities to take drastic measures to eradicate pests and plant diseases to save the winter-spring rice crop and help farmers who had been hit hard.
Brown plant hoppers destroyed millions hectares of rice in Vietnam in 1977-78 and 1990-91, seriously reducing rice output in the Mekong Delta, the country’s rice basket.
Youth, Vietnam Economic Times
Vietnamese
