Chinese hybrid rice prices increase, farmers suffer losses

(Baonghean) -Every year, at the beginning of the spring crop season, Vietnamese businesses flock to China to buy hybrid rice seeds to sell to Vietnamese farmers.

Understanding the general psychology of Vietnamese enterprises is to buy quickly to sell at a good price and Vietnamese farmers are very "addicted" to Chinese hybrid rice seeds, so Chinese enterprises give many reasons, such as this year's crop of hybrid rice seeds produced in Chinese localities at the beginning of the planting season suffered from severe drought, many pests and diseases, and when harvesting, there was heavy rain and wind so the yield was very low, the rice seed output was limited... whoever buys quickly and first will have seeds, whoever buys late will run out of seeds.

So Vietnamese rice seed suppliers use the “tactic” of meeting each Chinese partner individually to negotiate the price of each type of rice seed they buy. Taking advantage of this, Chinese rice seed companies keep the price inflated and ask Vietnamese customers to keep the price they sell to them a secret. If the price is revealed to other customers, they will not give them a discount when paying. As a result, Vietnamese businesses all think they are the most favored customers, getting the best price. That is the Chinese trick of buying and selling rice seeds.

As far as we know, this year's crop in China has produced a large crop of hybrid rice seeds, the average production cost of 1 kg of hybrid rice seeds is 11 - 12 yuan (equivalent to 40,000 - 41,000 VND). However, because Vietnam has not actively produced enough hybrid rice seeds for sale, the price of Chinese hybrid rice seeds has increased. As for Vietnamese seed import enterprises, they are willing to accept buying Chinese hybrid rice seeds at high prices and selling them at high prices, as long as they make a profit. Farmers have to bear this consequence. As far as we know, currently, the two markets offering hybrid rice seeds in Hekou and Dongxing (China) have the lowest price for Nhi Uu 838 hybrid rice variety, which is sold at 20-21 yuan/kg (equivalent to 66,000-67,000 VND), the average price is Kim Uu 725 variety, which is sold at 24-25 yuan/kg (equivalent to 80,000-81,000 VND), the highest price is Nghi Huong 2308 and Nghi Huong 305 varieties, which are sold at 30 yuan/kg (equivalent to 100,000-101,000 VND). Based on the above selling and buying prices, when it reaches Vietnamese producers, each kilogram of seeds must bear an additional 10,000 VND. With the price of hybrid rice seeds and the price of various fertilizers and materials increasing, how much profit will producers make per unit area? From here, farmers need to have a very detailed and specific problem to decide whether or not to buy hybrid rice seeds at such an exorbitant price for production?

Currently in Vietnam, scientists have also produced many hybrid rice varieties with high yield, good quality, and short growth time such as: TH 3-3, TH 3-4, TH 3-5, VL 20, VL 24, LC 270 and many pure rice varieties with yields not much lower than hybrid rice, with good and very good rice quality such as: BC15, Materials - NA2, HT1, T10... If calculating the economic efficiency per unit area, the production of the above rice varieties will bring higher economic efficiency, because they have both high yield and good rice quality, which are favored by consumers. Therefore, it is not necessary to buy Chinese hybrid rice seeds at such high prices as at present for production.

Doan Tri Tue