Inevitable trend in production

(Baonghean) -Delicious, high-quality rice varieties are increasingly chosen by consumers, even at high prices. Choosing and using high-quality rice varieties is considered an inevitable trend in agricultural production, so the area of ​​high-quality rice in our province is increasing day by day…

As the "rice granary" of the province, the amount of food produced by Yen Thanh is very large every year. However, in the general situation, for many years, farmers in the rice fields have been in a state of "good harvest, low price", the rice produced under the sun and rain is unsold. In recent years, in the trend of the market increasingly favoring high-quality rice, the government and people of Yen Thanh have been quick and bold in changing the crop structure to find a new, more convenient and effective direction. Mr. Nguyen Sy Hung (Vice Chairman of the District People's Committee) said: For the past 3 years, we have focused on strong transformation, introducing high-quality seed production models, creating favorable "output" for people to see, believe and follow. In particular, focusing on purebred rice varieties of good quality and grade such as AC5, Bac Thom No. 7, glutinous rice varieties 89, glutinous rice 87, or Bio 404, hybrid rice F1, L25, gradually introducing the golden flower glutinous rice variety that the market is favoring. This spring crop, Yen Thanh planted 13,209 hectares, of which only 5,600 hectares were hybrid rice, the rest were purebred rice varieties. "The yield of high-quality rice varieties reached about 65 quintals/ha, while hybrid rice reached an average of 72 quintals/ha, but the economic efficiency of high-quality rice varieties is still 1.5 times higher due to high prices and favorable output, most of which are contracted by businesses to consume the products."

High-quality rice variety VTNA2 is being put into production in Nghi Loc fields. Photo: V.Đ

Mr. Vo Xuan Hong (Hamlet 6, Hung Xa Commune, Hung Nguyen) has 5 sao of rice land in the district's model field. Last spring crop, he was fully supported with rice seeds. In addition to saving for family use, Mr. Hong has just sold nearly 1 ton of Nang Xuan rice. He happily said: This spring crop, the rice yield is not as high as last year - only at 2.5 - 2.7 quintals/sao, but the efficiency is still high because the price of rice from the beginning of the harvest season until now has increased from 8,000, then to 9,000 VND and now has reached 9,500 - 10,000 VND/kg, considered a "record" price. Used to growing Chinese hybrid rice, AC5, Mr. Hong has only known about Nang Xuan rice for 2 years, but he really "likes" this rice variety. Because according to him, although the yield of Nang Xuan rice is lower than that of hybrid rice varieties, the rice is very delicious, the price is high but still not enough to sell to traders. This year, more than 1 ton of his Nang Xuan rice was still easily consumed, the price is still high.

In recent years, the area of ​​high-quality rice in Hung Nguyen has been increasing. Deputy Head of the District Agriculture Department - Hoang Duc An shared: Many high-quality rice varieties such as AC5, Nang Xuan, HT1, XT28, VTNA2... have been introduced more and more; thanks to the good application of scientific and technological advances, their productivity is not significantly lower than that of hybrid rice varieties. For example, in the last spring crop, the yield of hybrid rice reached approximately 66 quintals/ha, while the yield of high-quality pure rice varieties also reached an average of 59-61 quintals/ha. Meanwhile, according to our survey, the price of Khang Dan rice and hybrid rice varieties at the beginning of the harvest was purchased by traders in Hung Nguyen at the price of 5,400 VND - 5,700 VND/kg and has now increased to about 6,200 VND/kg; Pure rice varieties, even hybrid rice with good quality such as AC5, Nang Xuan, HT1, XT28, NA2... are all purchased at the current price of 8,000 - 10,000 VND/kg. In particular, if in previous years, delicious sticky rice varieties 87, DT52 were very difficult to sell, this year, traders came down to buy right when the rice was fresh, at a quite high price, 6,800 - 7,000 VND/kg.

In the production structure, hybrid rice still accounts for about 70%, such as in the spring crop of 2012, in the total area of ​​nearly 90,000 hectares of rice in the whole province, only about 10,000 hectares were planted with high-quality pure rice varieties, plus nearly 1,000 hectares of hybrid rice varieties with good rice quality such as 3-line hybrid rice GS9, Bio 404, Nghi Huong 2308... Therefore, the quality of Nghe An rice is generally much lower than that of other provinces, especially rice from the South and Thai rice. Nghe An rice is mainly sold to some beer, alcohol and animal feed processing establishments, and is rarely sold to urban consumers.

While high-quality rice varieties are easy to sell and have high prices, hybrid rice varieties are increasingly the opposite. Currently, varieties such as purebred rice Khang Dan 18, hybrid rice Khai Phong 1... are very difficult to sell, farmers mainly produce them for livestock farming, making vermicelli and cakes, and producing animal feed. The prices of these rice varieties are also very low, such as this spring crop, at the peak harvest time, the price of rice was only about 5,000 VND/kg, while purebred rice varieties and even hybrid rice varieties with good quality such as AC5, DT68, GS9, BTE1, DT52, HT1, Bac Thom No. 7 are always 3-4,000 VND/kg higher, even some varieties like Nang Xuan are one and a half times higher. From that reality, last spring crop, while the province's plan was to plant 10,000 hectares of high-quality rice, in the districts, this number increased to over 20 thousand hectares, including: Nam Dan 2,500 hectares, Do Luong 1,500 hectares, Nghi Loc over 1,000 hectares. According to Mr. Tu Trong Kim (Head of Cultivation Department - Department of Agriculture and Rural Development), this is a positive signal in the trend of gradually shifting to commodity production, increasing the value of agricultural production, especially when input costs in production are increasingly high, how to increase economic value per unit area for farmers is an inevitable requirement. In fact, this conversion was enthusiastically received by farmers, because the varieties introduced all have outstanding advantages, good yield, good quality, high commodity value, so they convinced the people. Rice varieties with good quality and low yield are not significantly inferior to hybrid rice varieties such as BTE1, Nghi Huong 2308, Quy So Uu, GS9, which are gaining position. It can be said that this is an inevitable trend in the agricultural production of our province.

Phu Huong