Lower cost, high price of rice

Currently, a number of farmers in Dong Thap Muoi region (including the three provinces of Dong Thap, Tien Giang and Long An) have started to start winter-spring rice harvesting as early as 2022-2023. They all share great joy that year the harvest was successful and sold to traders at a high price, giving the family a prosperous New Year.

Thap Muoi (Dong Thap) district is one of the first places where winter-spring rice is harvested, some people harvest it before Lunar New Year and a few days after Tet.

In this winter-spring harvest, farmer Nguyen Van Tinh in My Phuoc Hamlet 1, My Quy Township, Thap Muoi District (Dong Thap) first selected OM 468 rice variety to cultivate in cooperation with seed rice production companies an area of ​​10 hectares. Before the Lunar New Year, his family harvested rice with a yield of more than 7.5 tons/ha, sold it at the market price of VND 6,800/kg and received an additional VND 1,000/kg when the company bought it. By selecting new varieties for cultivation, applying advanced science and technology, and conducting rice seed cultivation business, his family has earned an income of over VND250 million.

Mr. Nguyen Van Tinh shared, “In many rice crops, he chose commonly cultivated rice varieties to sell trade rice to traders.” The yield and profit were not high. Especially for this year’s winter-spring rice harvest, he boldly chose a new variety OM 468 for planting, rice with fewer pests and diseases, reduced 1-time spraying of pesticides, and the amount of fertilizer applied was compared by 5-7 kg/work to this reduced previous harvests.

The special thing that impressed Mr. Tinh is that this variety of rice blooms very beautifully, the flowers are large and long, the seed ratio is high, the rice is ripe by harvest time, but the leaves are beautiful, lemon yellow and do not fade like other varieties. After harvest, selling to merchants is very convenient, with high prices.

In Can Tho City, the 2022-2023 winter-spring rice harvest has seeded nearly 80,000 hectares, according to the plan, about 20-25 days remain until the peak harvest. The good thing about this year is that farmers who grow winter-spring rice are extremely favorable because the weather is favorable, there are few pests and diseases, resulting in the investment cost of this rice crop compared to winter – Spring rice harvest will decrease by 5-10% this year.

In this rice harvest, almost every farmer is happy, when the rice is sown for a few weeks, a trader comes to pay a deposit in advance and buy young green rice in the field for 6,000-7,800 VND/kg or more. depending on the type).

Mr. Le Van Vung, a farmer in Tan Thanh Township, Thoi Lai District, Can Tho City, who planted 1.2 ha of variety OM 5451 and has 2 weeks left until harvest, said, “This year due to family economic difficulties due to the construction of the house, i.e. all investments costs for the rice harvest in winter-spring. However, since the beginning of the harvest, when the rice was 1 month old, “rice storks” would come to the house to post a deposit before waiting for the harvest day to buy rice later.

The participation price is 500,000 VND/work while offering a purchase price of 6,500 to 6,600 VND/kg (depending on the good and bad rice). According to Mr. Vung’s estimate, this rice crop is about 1 ton/ton, after deducting expenses, his family’s profit is 2.8-3 million VND/labour.

“Actually, I don’t want to sell rice so quickly because I hope that the price of rice will rise even higher than the price that the traders are offering. Because according to the functional industry forecast, this year’s winter-spring rice harvest will give many good signals in terms of prices, and the situation of rice exports is very positive,” said Mr. Vung.

In places like O Mon district, Thoi Lai district, Co Do district, etc., fresh IR 50404 rice seeds are bought from traders in the field for a deposit of VND 6,600-6,700/kg. Long grain rice varieties cost over 6,000 VND/kg, while fragrant rice varieties cost around 7,000 VND/kg. Among the above varieties of rice, the IR 50404 variety is most often purchased by merchants.

Rice prices go up

According to our records, in early February 2023, many factories and companies that produce and trade rice reopened after the Lunar New Year holiday. The winter-spring rice market began to have many strong transactions, the Mekong Delta rice price continued to rise at high levels.

In An Giang, OM 18 rice is currently bought from traders in the field at prices ranging from 6,800 to 6,900 VND/kg, OM 5451 from 6,800 to 7,000 VND/kg, Dai Tho 8 from 7,000 to 7,300 VND/kg and Nang Hoa 9 from 6,900-7,200 VND/kg, Long An dry sticky rice from 9,000-9,200 VND/kg, An Giang dry sticky rice price from 8,400-8,600 VND/kg, Japanese rice from 7,800-7,900 VND/kg, IR 50404 rice from 6,500-6,700 VND /kg…

The price of rice in Can Tho remained unchanged from last week as OM 4218 was VND 6,600/kg, IR 50404 was VND 6,500/kg and Jasmine remained at VND 7,500/kg. In Soc Trang, the price of Dai Thom 8 rice is VND 8,000/kg, OM 5451 is VND 7,850/kg and ST24 is VND 8,300/kg. In Kien Giang, rice prices remained stable compared to last week, e.g. The price of rice in Tien Giang with IR 50404 is 7,000 VND/kg, jasmine is 7,400 VND/kg and OC10 is 7,000 VND/kg.

For rice, prices for raw materials and finished products remained stable. Currently, the price of raw rice is between VND 9,300 and VND 9,400/kg, while the price of finished rice is between VND 10,000 and VND 10,100/kg. For by-products, too, by-product prices tend to move sideways. Currently the price for tin is 9,300 VND/kg, for dry bran 8,100 – 8,200 VND/kg.

In the markets, the price of plain rice ranges from 11,500 to 12,500 VND/kg, fragrant jasmine rice from 15,000 to 16,000 VND/kg, Soc plain rice from 14,000 VND/kg, glutinous rice from 14,000 to 15,000 VND/kg, Nang Nhen rice at 20,000 VND/kg, Thai fragrant rice long grain 18,000 – 19,000 VND/kg, Huong Lai rice 19,000 VND/kg…