Vietnam exported 3.5 million tonnes of rice in the first six months of this year, earning USD1.7 billion, according to the Vietnam Food Association (VFA).
The VFA reported that farmers in the Mekong delta, Vietnam ’s largest rice bowl, have harvested over 210,000 ha of rice out of the total cultivated area of 1.6 million ha in the 2010-2011 summer-autumn crop with an average yield of 5 tonnes per hectare, up 0.2 tonnes over the yield in the same period last year.
The provinces of An Giang and Can Tho saw even higher average yields of 6-6.5 tonnes per hectare.
Normal rice was purchased at prices from 5,800 to 6,000 VND per kilogramme, meanwhile the price of high quality rice type was between VND6,300 and VND6,800 (USD0.3-USD0.32) per kilogramme. As a result, farmers earned profits of 30-35 percent compared to production cost.
