Discussing winter corn production in Nghe An

(Baonghean) -Winter crop production in Nghe An has been around since 1986 and 1987 of the last century with the first crops being sweet potatoes, leafy vegetables, and root vegetables. The main crops are sweet potatoes, with an average of 18,000-20,000 hectares planted each season, accounting for 80-85% of the total winter crop area.

Since 2000, the average winter crop area planted each year is 46,400 hectares with a diverse group of crops such as corn, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, leafy vegetables of all kinds, root vegetables, beans, peanuts, squash, onions, garlic, etc. Of which, corn is the main crop, with an average of 27,860 hectares planted each winter crop, accounting for 60-65% of the total winter crop area. The highest year (2006) was 33,528 hectares. The average corn yield in recent years has reached 34.8 quintals/ha, the highest year (2009) was 41.24 quintals/ha.

Winter crop production in Nghe An has always received the attention and direction of the Provincial Party Committee, the Provincial People's Committee and relevant sectors in terms of policies, guidance measures and financial support through seed subsidies. However, up to now, winter crop production has not really become the main crop and therefore there is no large-scale crop that brings high economic efficiency to producers.

Based on decades of experience, it seems that winter corn production is relatively safer than other crops. The biggest difficulty for winter corn is the timing. Early sowing can easily lead to heavy rains causing flooding and killing the plants, while late sowing can result in delayed harvest, affecting the timing of subsequent crops. If this difficulty can be overcome, expanding the winter corn acreage is not a concern.

Corn production is currently a huge advantage, because corn products are widely used in livestock farming, beer and wine processing, confectionery, etc. In particular, for animal feed production, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in 2011 alone, in addition to the amount of corn produced domestically, in 2011, the whole country spent 3 billion USD to import 8.9 million tons of raw materials for animal feed, mainly corn, oil cake, soybeans, etc. That proves the huge demand for corn to develop livestock farming in our country. In Nghe An, the livestock industry is also growing strongly, currently the total herd of pigs in the whole province is over 1.1 million and more than 15 million poultry. Just counting pigs and poultry alone, each year Nghe An needs 400-450 thousand tons of corn kernels to serve livestock farming. Meanwhile, each year as at present, the whole province only produces over 200 thousand tons of corn kernels. Of this, more than half is produced in the current winter crop, the rest is produced in the spring and autumn crops.

The policy of developing corn in the winter crop is correct. However, in order for corn to become a major crop in the winter crop with an increasingly large scale and higher output, in addition to research, dissemination and compliance with planting techniques, the central government and the province need to have a strong enough policy mechanism to encourage the expansion of the winter corn planting area. Only by doing so can winter corn gradually become a major crop, with large commodity products gradually replacing the annual amount of corn that must be imported from abroad.

Such policies could be to subsidize seed prices, fertilizer prices and increase the purchase price of commercial corn products by 10-15% higher than the free market price and consider this as a source of investment funding to support farmers, similar to the Thai government increasing the purchase price of paddy for farmers by 10-15% higher than the free market price to both reserve commodity rice for export and support farmers to increase their income from rice cultivation. Encourage domestic and foreign enterprises to invest in corn production by investing in seeds and fertilizers in advance and buying back products after harvest. Or before the production season, enterprises sign contracts to purchase all corn products for farmers at the free market price plus a small percentage to encourage farmers to sell corn to enterprises.

Doan Tri Tue