Post-harvest management of rice urged

Van Dat

 

Farmers harvest a rice crop in southern An Giang Province's Tan Chau District. Post-harvest technology in Viet Nam needs to be improved to reduce loss and raise rice quality to make Vietnamese rice more competitive. — VNA/VNS Photo Duy Khuong

SOC TRANG — Viet Nam needs to focus on improving post-harvest practices in order to garner greater benefits for farmers and make Vietnamese rice more competitive in the world market, experts said at a conference in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Soc Trang on Thursday.

Apart from the rice strains that are cultivated, post-harvest processing has a large bearing on rice quality, they said.

Several speakers at the conference noted that rice quality has indeed improved in Viet Nam in recent years because of improvement in rice strains and the application of modern technology in farming and post-harvest activities.

If farmers can better access the best practices in rice production, there will be an increase in production as well as the quality of the rice, they said.

Previously, Thailand accounted for 80 per cent of the rice imported by Hong Kong, but since 2010, this has dropped to 60 per cent. The market share of Vietnamese rice, meanwhile, has increased to 18 per cent from three per cent. One of the reasons for the growth is the improvement made in rice quality, speakers said.

Pham Van Tan, deputy director of the Southern Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Post-harvest Technology (SIAEP), said with low quality rice, the market would be smaller.

He said the rice supply chain should be shortened to improve quality.

Post-harvest treatment has a great bearing on the quality of rice. However the task has not been done well by Vietnamese farmers. The downgrade of Vietnamese rice is often made during the post-harvest period, Tan said.

"Storage and drying are the two weakest activities in Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta," he said. He said there was a need to train various parties in the rice supply chain and other supporting agencies in post-harvest technologies to reduce post-harvest loss and improve rice quality.

Rice quality also decides the income of both farmers and traders, T?n said. He noted that Vietnamese rice is always cheaper than Thai rice for the same variety. The price of Viet Nam's rice is US$30 to $100 per tonne cheaper. Grant Singleton, Coordinator of the International Rice Research Institute's Irrigated Rice Research Consortium, which is implementing a model applying Good Agricultural Practices in An Giang for the past 12 years, said paddy cultivation in Viet Nam, especially in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta, had great potential.

But challenge is how farmers can improve quality and earn greater incomes, Singleton told Viet Nam News, adding that they needed to improve their production practices and make them much more efficient.

"In order to produce premium quality rice, we need to establish better linkages between farmers, service providers, traders and others to facilitate adoption of best practices for production and post-harvest management of rice," said Singleton. Production efficiency lays the basis for improvement in rice quality, he said. "In the past, a farmer would produce high quality rice, and the neighbouring farmer would produce ordinary rice, and the buyer would buy both and mix it. This does not benefit them."

He suggested farmers make themselves aware better of the market and price variations, which means they would have to meet and work together in negotiating with buyers.

Importing countries also want to have clear indications that rice is produced under environmentally sustainable methods, Singleton said.

Small holdings

Rice is farmers'major source of income but their rice cultivation land are very small,participants said at the conference.

Farmers with less than one ha or less than two ha do not get enough income from rice. So they need to find other jobs.

There are a large number of families having less than one ha of land to farm. In the Song Hong (Red River) Delta, the number of farmers with less than half a ha of land is very high.

They should group their farms together to make production more efficient, which in turn would improve the quality of rice, participants said. — VNS