VietNamNet Bridge – Despite their industrious work and great efforts, Vietnamese farmers remain poor. Their farm produce, including specialties, are purchased at knock-down prices.

The people of My Le Commune in Long An Province have sold only 90 tons of Nang Thom Cho Dao rice, while the remaining 120 tons of the 2013-2014 crop lays dormant and unsold.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted a certificate of trademark protection for “Nang Thom Cho Dao” rice. This is a kind of special high-class rice which cannot be produced in any other parts of the world.

According to Huynh Van Co, Chair of the My Le Agriculture Service Cooperative in Can Duoc District, the local farmers had been encouraged to grow the specialty rice on an area of 500 hectares, while EcoForm JSC promised to be responsible for its purchase and distribution.

However, any joy the farmers felt at that time was premature. EcoForm has “disappeared”, just several days after collecting rice.

Nguyen Thi Nam, a farmer in Can Duoc District, said she has harvested 4 tons of Nang Thom Cho Dao rice, but she cannot sell any of it.

Chau Thi Luom in My Le Commune has also been put on tenterhooks because her 2.5 tons of rice remains unsold. If she cannot sell the rice, she will not have money to cover the family’s basic needs and pay down her bank debts.

Nang Thom Cho Dao rice is not alone in this distinction. Many other farm products of Vietnam, including rice, coffee and watermelon, are dirt cheap in the world market, despite their high quality.

While high-quality rice remains unsellble, popular rice has been sold at surprisingly low prices. In June 2013, Oryza, a website that tracks the global rice market, reported that Vietnam’s rice price had dropped by 1-4 percent. At that time, Vietnam offered 5 percent broken rice at $370 per ton, listing itself among the countries which sell rice most cheaply.

In the latest news, Vietnam decided to bid the strikingly low price of $439 per ton to obtain the right to provide 800,000 tons of rice to the Philippines. Its rivals had all bid upwards of $469 per ton for the same deal.

Local newspapers some days ago reported that farmers in the central region were discarding watermelon or feeding it to their cattle, because of excess stock which had no buyers. Hundreds of trucks carrying watermelon reportedly got stuck at the Vietnam-China border, causing an export deadlock and a sudden drop in demand.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has released a report revealing that prices of nearly all export items have been falling. The average rubber export price has dropped by 24.80 percent, while rice, cassava and cassava-made products have seen the prices decreasing by 10-19 percent.

The ministry has estimated that the price decreases have led to the loss of $160 million in export turnover.

A farmer in Thach That District in the former province of Ha Tay, now a part of Hanoi, said he feels self-pity when hearing that Japanese farmers were able to sell a couple of mangos for 1.6 million Yen, or $15,000.

“Their works can be well repaid, while ours cannot,” he lamented.

Dat Viet