A fruity end to agricultural produce manipulators

From May 2011 until present a number of foreign traders have come to Vietnam to purchase agricultural produce on a large scale and these cases have become increasingly complex.

Apart from helping farmers sell products more quickly with better prices not a few cases have proven illegal, causing losses to farmers and agricultural production and creating market troubles, according to head of Ministry of Industry and Trade’s (MoIT) Domestic Market Department Vo Van Quyen.

A common business trick performed by foreign traders is buying products at abnormally high prices.

This led to farmers rushing into enlarging areas grown with these products, breaking regional production planning, hurting the environment and depleting natural resources.

After driving up prices to unrealistic levels, these foreign traders abruptly stopped buying the products, causing a nosedive in product prices and placing farmers in a pickle.

Besides, foreign traders buying items massively regardless of size, quality and associated factors had cast a dent on Vietnamese products’ reputation in the world marketplace.

“These activities have created a mess in the market and hurt farmers, while causing detrimental impacts on social security,” said Quyen.

Director Nguyen Minh Toai at Can Tho City Department of Industry and Trade in the Mekong Delta echoed Quyen’s comments.

He said in the recent past many foreign traders came to purchase rice of Can Tho firms. Then, they required firms to fill half of these batches with lower grade rice varieties. These batches then could not pass checks by import country’s quality control bodies, local firms had to ‘swallow a bitter pill’ but they could not report the case and seek support from competent state agencies.

Planting Japanese violet sweet potatoes was another case. At the time the price of this product escalated, farmers in southern Vinh Long province’s Binh Minh district came to Can Tho leasing land to grow the product. These farmers later caught a big loss when foreign traders abruptly turned their back on the product.

Latest statistics show that Ben Tre province is now home to 70,000 hectares coconut areas, up 15,000ha against mid 2011, according to the provincial People’s Committee deputy chairman Cao Van Trong.

That was partly because at time when a dozen of coconuts fetched VND150,000 ($7), farmers rushed into growing coconut trees. They then suffered when foreign traders stopped buying the product and a dozen of coconuts dropped to VND15,000, one-tenths of former price. To rescue farmer, the provincial management had decided to support farmers VND1.5 million ($71) per hectare of coconut trees.

MoIT deputy minister Ho Thi Kim Thoa said legal documents regulating foreign traders’ activities were relatively comprehensive and these some afore-mentioned cases stemmed from careless governance by some local governments.

Hence, in the coming period the MoIT would join efforts with relevant ministries, sectors and localities to foster management and ramp up propagation to make farmers aware and  avoid getting involved in illegal cases.

Besides, promoting using contracts in transactions among farmers to enhance legality is also a must to minimise negative phenomena.