Cassava, new commercial crop for Xekong
Cassava, new commercial crop for Xekong
Cassava will create jobs and boost income for farmers in Xekong province after the provincial authorities agreed to allow a company in the Vietnamese Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group to sign agreements with the farmers.
The company has agreed to supply cassava seed, marketing and technical assistance, while the farmers supply their labour and land for growing, the provincial agriculture section head, Mr Bounsy Singphichit told Vientiane Times yesterday.
In the first year the company plans to have the farmers grow about 400 hectares of cassava and expects to expand this over the next few years, he said.
The company, in cooperation with the Xekong Provincial Agriculture and Forestry Department and local authorities, are contacting all the farmers who are interested to work with them so that they can study the condition of the land before proceeding, said Mr Bounsy.
He expected that most of the cassava production will be sold to the company for processing into animal feed to supply cattle farms in the province and in Attapeu province.
This is the first company to approach Xekong farmers to grow cassava and then buy it from them.
In previous years, farmers only grew sufficient cassava for their own family needs with any surplus sold to local markets but growing cassava using the company's techniques and knowhow will make it a truly commercial crop, creating more jobs and boosting income.
Elsewhere in Laos where Cassava is grown, it is mainly exported to neighbouring countries like Vietnam and China.
Last year the country exported around 77,800 tonnes of dry cassava worth US$11.8 million, 57,300 tonnes of cassava powder worth about US$41.5 million and 2,000 tonnes of fresh cassava worth US$65,560, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's Agriculture Department.
The country this fiscal year expects farmers and business units to plant 6,000 hectares of cassava producing 1.51 million tonnes for domestic supply and export. However, the number of cassava growers in some central provinces, particularly Borikhamxay and Vientiane as well as the capital itself, has decreased because there is no guaranteed market.
Large numbers of cassava growers have lost confidence in the cassava crop and some have switched to growing other crops after the Lao-Indochina Group Public Company's financial crisis.
This particular crop still ranks high in market demand, however, being processed into many different kinds of food.
