Farmers expect more profitable fall-winter crop

While farmers in the Mekong Delta are eager to harvest the bumper summer-fall crops because of high price and demand of rice, the forecast of low flood level made them more exciting to grow the fall-winter crop.

According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in An Giang Province to the west, farmers have harvested approximately 227,000-ha summer-fall crop with average productivity of over 5.7 tons per hectare till early September.

Moreover, dealers were offering to buy IR rice at VND5,800 -VND6,100 per kilogram at paddy fields. Traders agreed to buy Taiwanese rice, Jasmine rice and Japanese rice at VND6,100 - VND6,300 per kilogram, VND6,300 per kilogram and VND7,500 a kilogram respectively.

Farmers can earn a net profit from VND20 million to VND25 million a hectare at this price. Farmers were so exciting that they turned over the soil to begin the next crop.

Director of the Department of agriculture and Rural Development in An Giang Nguyen Si Lam said farmers have sown seeds on 106,000 hectares and the work keeps continuing as the province will grow the fall-winter crop on 161,500 hectares.

Meantime, farmers in Kien Giang have harvested half of the summer-fall crop or 141,000 hectares. Forecasters have told that this year flood is not serious like previous years, agriculture sector in Kien Giang decided to expand the land for fall-winter crop to 83,000 hectares.

In Dong Thap Province at the heart of the Mekong Delta, farmers have enjoyed bumper crop with productivity of 800,000 tons. Farmer Nguyen Van Tuyen in Vinh Thanh Commune said thanks to good embankment system, fall-winter crop will be safer.

Moreover, forecasters announced this year flood will not be as high as before, farmers decided to expand rice farming area.

The Department of crop Production under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said local agriculture sector decision to grow the fall-winter crop on 800,000-ha land is reasonable to make up the shortage in the fall-winter crop before due to drought and salinity.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that consumption of rice is prospective to increase because of rise in exports.