Rice price hikes in Mekong delta

Early July, prices of rice in the Mekong delta continued increasing, making local farmers are feeling exhilarated in their production.

Price of rice increase making farmers exhilarated (Photo: SGGP)

High rice price has been remained unchanged in six months without the government’s intervention.

Farmer Tran Van Ngoan in Hau Giang Province’s Long My Town said that he sold rice of 0.5 hectare with VND5,150 per kilogram, earning profit of VND10 million. As a result, his family continued the fall-winter crop early with the hope to sell at a high price.

With the productivity of 6 tons a hectare and the price of over VND5,000 a kilogram, farmers in Hau Giang net VND20 million per hectare.

So far, farmers in Hau Giang have harvested rice in 20,000ha of the summer-fall crop. 70 percent of rice paddy fields in the province are grown from high quality seeds because they would supply high quality rice for export. This is a positive sign when farmers take heed to high quality seed.

The remaining areas are grown low quality for locals to make vermicelli for domestic markets, said director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Van Dong.

At present, farmers are harvesting 350,000ha of rice.

Moreover, rice export is showing good sign. The Vietnam Food Administration (VFA) said that traders offer to buy dry unhusked rice at the cost of VND5,400 - VND5.500 a kilogram and other variety at VND5,900 - VND6,000 kg.

Five-percent broken rice without package is quoted at VND8,300 – VND8,400 per kilogram and 15-percent broken rice is sold at VND8,100 – VND8,200 a kilogram and 25-percent broken rice fetch VND7,800 - VND7,900 a kilogram.

Early in 2017, VFA set a rice export target of 6.4 million tons, a year-on-year rise of 1.4 million tons. By the end of June, 2017 exporters sold nearly 3 million tons; accordingly, it is expected to be able to reach the 2017 target easily.