Expanding market of Yen Dung fragrant rice

The product of Yen Dung fragrant rice received the protection certificate for commodity's label in 2011, which is a condition to increase its value and economic efficiency. However, the rice has yet to grab the advantage.

Customer buys Yen Dung fragrant rice in a store at Bac Giang city.

The family of Ha Van Hoat in subregion 3, Neo town, Yen Dung district (Bac Giang province) has lived on rice milling for years with a monthly estimated supply of 20 tonnes of rice to the market, including only 5 tonnes of fragrant rice.

These customers mostly are the acquaintances of the family who buy the rice for the occasion of wedding, meeting instead of using for the daily meal.

“There are about 10 households with the same scale and output as ours in the neighboring communes around Neo town. Though the fragrant rice is sold at 2,000 VND per kilogram higher price than the popular rice, each household is able to sell only a few hundreds of tonnes of rice every year”, Hoat shared.

Annually, the farmers in Yen Dung district cultivate over 14,600 hectares of rice, including more than 3,000 hectares of fragrant rice with the productivity of about 16,500 tonnes. Because the grains are mostly sold to the tradesmen instead of enterprises and cooperatives with consumption linkage, the price is unstable.

Besides, there is a small quantity of product labeled “Gao thom Yen Dung/ Yen Dung fragrant rice” that is normally put in the showcase or distributed at scattered stores.

Few customers have approached the product due to unstable operation of the Association of the Production and Consumption of Yen Dung fragrant rice. Its members only connected to local households those live on rice milling, causing to low output and uneven rice quality. Meanwhile, the product package was not suitable because it was printed for a long time.

Facing to the current situation, it is necessary for the local authority to have a general plan of organizing the operation, managing the trademark, zoning off the cultivation area, focusing on the varieties’ quality and farming procedure so as to further promote Yen Dung fragrant rice to more families, improve its value and trademark.

Additionally, the cooperatives should be established as the contact point for linkage between production and consumption with due attention paid to growing the quality price toward a stable and long-term trend.