News

All forces should be mobilised to cope with severe drought and saline intrusion in order to ensure food and fresh water for daily usage, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat said at a meeting yesterday. Topics addressed by the Central Steering Committee for Natural Calamities Preparedness and Control included measures to confront drought and saline intrusion in the Central Highlands, southern central and Mekong Delta regions. Phat asked localities to closely watch weather and saline intrusion developments and water resources to adequately promote effective measures that would minimise production losses and stabilise incomes.

Vietnam's agricultural products are at risk of being surrounded by high-quality agricultural products from North American countries and New Zealand after the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) takes effect. If the opening of the agricultural market for Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Chile and Peru does not pose serious problems for Vietnam’s agriculture, it does for Canada and the United States because they are the countries with high-quality agricultural products and a complete value chain. These countries are rushing to develop strategies to bring agricultural products to TPP members. In the recent survey of the market of food and agricultural products in Vietnam, a Canadian agricultural enterprise said they were preparing to penetrate the Vietnamese market with high-quality products. The tariff is not too important now but rather the product strategy and the understanding of customers. This is a prerequisite to enter and compete in the Vietnamese market.

Losses from the severe drought that is parching central and southern Vietnam have risen to almost US$250 million as it ravages vast plantations and seafood farms, officials said. The number was compiled by the Central Steering Committee on Natural Disasters Prevention which surveyed the impact on agriculture in the Central Highlands, south central provinces and the Mekong Delta in the last three and a half months. The drought, the worst in the country in 90 years, has destroyed nearly 260,000 hectares of rice and vegetables, more than 160,000 hectares of orchards and cash crops and more than 4,500 hectares of seafood farms, according to the report.

Two Indonesian students from the Brawijaya University, Malang (East Java province), have invented a food preservative from bagasse, winning the silver medal at the 7th International Engineering Invention and Innovation Exhibition (i-ENVEX) in 2016, at the University of Malaysia Perlis (UNIMAP), held from April 8 to 10, 2016."We competed with young innovators from different countries.

Organic gardening is a traditional, healthy style of farming known to most Vietnamese people for centuries. However, the old style is fading in the modern day, as farmers keep rushing with rapid changes of habit of consumers in the market to increase their profit. As the number of cancer patients rises in hospitals and food is seen as a contributing factor, consumers and farmers think of the old, safe, environmentally friendly farming styles. Urban residents now prefer growing their own vegetables in plastic boxes on their balconies or roofs to provide themselves chemical-free vegetables. A community garden in Điện Bàn town in Quảng Nam Province has developed an organic farm model to help raise awareness in its community about the importance of safe, healthy food and environmental protection.

HÀ NỘI  — The Hà Ná»™i authorities will tighten food safety management and inspection during the Food Safety Action Month taking place in all provinces and cities nationwide from April 15. Speaking at a workshop to launch the action month yesterday in Hà Ná»™i, Deputy Health Minister Nguyá»…n Thanh Long said that food safety was one of the major issues of concern for the government and the National Assembly.

Four out of seven biofuel plants have been found using Chinese technology, while three others using technology imported from China and other countries such as the US, Denmark and India. The news that the VND2.2 trillion Dung Quat Bioethanol Ethanol run by BRS-BF has halted its operation did not surprise anyone, because the plant has been ‘at the point of death’ since April 2015. PV Oil, a subsidiary of the national oil & gas group PetroVietnam, the owner of Dung Quat, is also the major shareholder of OBF which runs the ethanol plant in Binh Phuoc province. PVB runs the biofuel in Phu Tho province.

The Vietnam Report in co-ordination with VietNamNet on April 12 announced the 2016 list of top 500 fastest growing and most prospective enterprises in Vietnam (FAST500) which has been held for the sixth consecutive year. The top 500 list honours enterprises with high potential and prospects for future growth, worthy of being highlighted in the Vietnamese economy.

The four foreign giants that are forecast to make changes in the Vietnamese market in the future are South Korea's CJ Group (food, biotechnology, entertainment , home shopping and logistics), Ayala Corporation of the Philippines (water supply, telecommunications, real estate, banking), Thailand's SCG (cement, building materials, plastics) and Thailand’s Central Group (retail, restaurants, hotels, real estate).

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai said that the event contributes to the integration of Vietnam into the global economy, one of the Government's priorities. Marta Calzadilla, representatives from the Cuban Chamber of Commerce, told Prensa Latina that there are 12 Cuban companies present in this fair representing sectors such as agriculture, health, services, food and construction.

HÀ NỘI — The worst drought in the last 30 years from El Nino troubled the local coffee growers in Đắk Lắk Province, but it also taught them the value of saving water. Äáº¯k Lắk, the biggest plantation of the robusta with 30 per cent contribution to Việt Nam’s economy, the second largest robusta export, has seen only a few spells of rain since last December, the country’s Coffee and Cocoa Association said last month. Rainfall in April in the Central Highlands and the south is forecast to be 50 per cent to 70 per cent lower than average, according to the Việt Nam’s National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting. Rainfall in Đắk Lắk Province is 86 per cent less as compared to this time last year.

Coffee growers in Vietnam, the biggest producer of robusta beans, sold beans at the fastest pace in two years to help pay for irrigation amid the worst drought in 30 years.
Growers sold 930,000 metric tons, or 58 percent of the current crop, at the end of March, according to a Bloomberg News survey of seven traders. That’s the fastest pace for the time of year since 62 percent in 2014 and compares with 49 percent a year earlier. This season’s output probably totaled 1.6 million tons, same as last year’s, according to the survey.

Trading in Vietnamese coffee rose this week as buyers stocked up amid worries a drought would crimp supply, although farmers held on to their supplies in hopes local prices will climb further from current four-month highs, traders said. Farmers in Vietnam's Central Highlands coffee belt have been hit by the worst drought in three decades brought on by the El Nino weather pattern, and more damage to the 2016/17 crop is expected due to water shortages, industry body Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association (Vicofa) has said.

The Vietnam Food Association (VFA) has forecast that China would account for around half Vietnam’s rice export volume this year as the northern neighbor did last year. Huynh The Nang, chairman of VFA and general director of Vietnam Southern Food Corporation (Vinafood 2), said at a conference in Tien Giang Province last week that Vietnamese enterprises shipped more than four out of 8.3 million tons of rice for export last year to China via formal and informal channels. The volume of rice going to China in 2016 would be the same as last year, Nang told the conference on the 2015-2016 winter-spring rice crop and plans for the upcoming summer-autumn and autumn-winter crops this year.

Fresh buying demand, coupled with concerns about the impact of dry weather in Thailand and Vietnam, has kept Asian rice prices stable in the past week, traders said on Wednesday. Thailand and Vietnam, the world's second- and third-biggest rice exporters after India, have been facing a drought brought on by the El Nino weather pattern since late 2015. 

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — As China opened one of its six dams on the upper Mekong River last month to help parched Southeast Asian countries down river cope with a record drought, it was hailed as benevolent water diplomacy. But to critics of hydroelectric dams built on the Mekong over the concerns of governments and activists, it was the self-serving act of a country that, along with hydropower-exporting Laos, has helped worsen the region’s water and environmental problems.