Hanoi - Vietnam, the world's number two rice exporter, may
cease exports by 2020 unless the government slows the conversion of
agricultural land to other uses, a government official said Thursday.
'Localities are racing with each other to ask the government for
permission to convert agricultural land to non-agricultural uses,
like golf courses,' Nguyen Tri Ngoc, director of the Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development's cultivation department, told the
German Press Agency dpa.
'If this situation continues uncontrolled, combined with the
current rate of population growth, it will be hard to satisfy the
demand for rice exports by 2020,' Ngoc said.
Ngoc said farmers have also been cutting back on rice cultivation
due to low profit margins.
The Vietnamese state-run newspaper Tien Phong reported Thursday
that the Mekong Delta region, the rice basket of Vietnam, grew 19
million tons of paddy rice on 1.9 million hectares in 2007. By 2020
the area farmed is expected to fall to 1.8 million hectares, while
improved efficiency is expected to raise harvests to 20.7 million
tons.
Vietnam's population is expected to grow by 13 million in that
period, to 99 million. Unless productivity rises faster than
expected, Ngoc said, Vietnam will have just enough rice for domestic
demand.
Vietnam's problems are part of a coming global squeeze on rice
supplies, said Samarendu Mohanty, senior economist at the
International Rice Research Institute in Manila.
'World rice demand is at an all-time high,' Mohanty said.
Meanwhile, 'Yield growth has been slowing for many years.'
Mohanty said yield growth per hectare is running at 0.7 per cent
per year, while demand is growing at about the same rate as global
population, or 1.3 per cent. Suppliers have so far met demand by
expanding the area under cultivation, adding 10 million hectares
worldwide in the past seven years.
But with increasing conversion of rice paddy land to biofuels,
urbanization and other uses, that solution is no longer possible.
'We are very concerned about preserving national food security,'
Ngoc said. He said his department had asked the government to use all
possible means to preserve fertile farmland.
Mohanty said land use should be governed by market principles, and
that the solution was to increase investment in irrigation and
scientific development of more productive strains of rice.
Members of Vietnam's National Assembly last week criticized the
government for granting too many permits to convert agricultural land
into golf courses. Vietnam has approved a total of 144 golf course
licences.
Assembly member Nguyen Lan Dung said golf courses should be built
in hilly areas unsuitable for agriculture, but had too often been
built on flat agricultural land to save money.
Often, Dung told the Assembly, land officially registered for golf
course projects was in fact converted to 'villas for sale at towering
prices, while the compensation paid to farmers is very low.'
After the Assembly session, the Vietnamese government announced it
would cancel 50 golf course projects.
Vietnam exported 4.8 million tons of rice in 2008. In 2009, the
government projects that will rise to 5.2 million tons.
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