Mekong Delta farmers upbeat about a good crop are now getting anxious that prices of unhusked rice have begun to fall due to a lack of consumption.
Nguyen Van Thanh, a farmer from Vinh Thoi Commune in Dong Thap Province’s Lai Vung District, said the Mekong Delta region has been harvesting the winter-spring crop, a major crop of the year.
“This year, the yield has been a bit higher than last year at 6.5 tons per hectare, but unhusked rice prices have dropped, and we are very worried.”
Before the Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, a kilogram of unhusked rice was selling at VND5,000, now it has dropped to VND4,200. The price has fallen by VND800 per kilogram in less than two weeks.
Tran Van Giau of Vinh Long Province said: “Not only have prices fallen but it is also not easy to sell rice.”
Traders usually visited farms to buy the harvest in previous years, but this year no one has come, he said, adding that this means farmers do not have money they owe for inputs like fertilizer and pesticides.
Giau has had to rent a junk to transport rice home because he has not been able to sell it at the farm itself.
Traders usually begin to buy rice on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, but this year, no one has turned up even though it is already the eighth day.
Dr. Le Van Banh, head of the Mekong Delta Rice Institute, said region’s provinces will enter the peak harvest season for the winter-spring rice crop in March, at which time rice volumes that have to be sold will increase everyday.
Production costs for this crop are estimated at VND2,000-2,500 per kilogram, so at current selling prices, farmers will earn profits of 40-50 percent, he said.
However, farmers say they are worried about prices dropping further as increasing quantities of the grain are harvested.
Duong Nghia Quoc, deputy director of the Dong Thap Agriculture and Rural Development Department, said the Vietnam Food Association (VFA) needs to intervene soon to prevent a continuous price drop when the harvest is at the peak by have its member companies boost purchases.
VFA chairman Truong Thanh Phong said the association will ensure the minimum price of VND4,000 per kilogram so that farmers will earn a profit of 40 percent at least.
VFA will ask its member companies to boost purchases to push up prices if the market gets worse, he said.
Therefore, farmers shouldn’t get worried and sell their produce at lower prices when prices drop, Mr. Phong added.
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