Tay Ninh and Thanh Hoa are two provinces which have the biggest sugar cane growing areas in the south and north. If the three sugar plants in Tay Ninh can run at full capacity, they will be able to provide 20 percent of the total sugar output of the country.

However, the sugar cane growing area in the province has been narrowed.  Farmers have given up growing sugar cane to grow rubber, maize or cassava.

According to the Mekong Delta Research and Development Institute under the Can Tho University, increasingly farmers are giving up growing sugar cane because of the low yield.

The 2007-2008 crop, for example, had an average yield of just 47 tonnes per hectare, while 32.5 percent of households had a yield below 50 tonnes per hectare.

With a low yield of 50 tonnes per hectare, farmers would certainly make a loss.  They would, however, receive a profit of 1.6 million dong if they obtained a yield of 50-70 tonnes per hectare and seven million dong if the yield is 70-100 tonnes per hectare. Only when they have the capacity of 100 tonnes per hectare, will they be able to obtain high profits.

Therefore, it is understandable that many sugar cane growers have moved to grow cassava instead, which does not take as much time to take care for and allows farmers to harvest after a short time.

A lot of reasons have been cited to explain the low yield of sugar cane. Scientists also point out that sugar cane varieties have degenerated.

Scientists say that the sugar cane yield of Thailand is now 200-220,000 tonnes per hectare, or nearly four times higher than the current yield of Vietnam. That explains why Thailand’s sugar is always cheaper than Vietnam’s and why sugar is still being imported illegally to Vietnam despite the efforts of government agencies to fight illegal imports.

There is also another factor that makes the sugar cane growing areas decrease - the sugar cane production cost has been increasing. Nowadays, farmers have to spend 19 million dong to grow and harvest one hectare of sugar cane.

1 million tonne sugar programme still out of reach

Scientists say that over the last ten years, the demand for sugar has increased by 20-30 percent, while the sugar cane growing areas have been decreasing.

As a result, Vietnam has been suffering ‘sugar fever’ over the last two months with the retail prices reaching 20,000 dong per kilo.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in 2008-2009 sugar cane crop, Vietnam had 270,600 hectares of sugar cane, down by 36,000 hectares over the previous crop, which resulted in the reduction of 18.6 percent in sugar cane output and the marketed sugar volume down by 18-20 percent.

VietNamNet/TBKTSG