According to the Department of Crop Production under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, for the period 1995-2005, thanks to planting new variety of corn, farmland for growing corn increased across the country leading to surge in production of corn from one million tons to over four million tons a year
However, lately, it has plummeted below five percent because of diseases and wild grass, Vietnamese farmers have no choice but import corn.
Corn animal feed is the agricultural product Vietnam has imported most in ten recent years. For instance, in 2017, the Southeast Asian country imported 7.7 million tons costing $1.4 billion.
Whereas, in the first six months of 2018, the country spent nearly $1 billion to buy 4.9 million tons of corn, up 35 percent against the same period last year.
The Department said that after four years, new corn variety planted in Vietnam brings high-yield than cross-bred kinds because it can eliminate worms and wild grass resulting in decreased production cost as farmers use little pesticide and labor cost.
Over 125,000 farmers growing new corn have improved productivity and income; accordingly, farmland for new corn variety leaped from 12,500 hectare in 2015 to 28,100 hectare in 2017 to one million hectare nationwide.
As per CropLife Vietnam, by 2017, 24 nations permitted growing genetically modified trees in the area of 189.8 million hectare, an increase of 3 percent compared to 2016), leading to profit surge of $102 per hectare.
Additionally, 43 nations use genetically modified trees as animal feed and food.
