Kheavaly sponsors maize growing in Sangthong
Kheavaly sponsors maize growing in Sangthong
The Kheavaly Agricultural Complex Import and Export Sole Co., Ltd. with support from the Nayoby Bank is ploughing almost one billion kip into a project to help farmers in Sangthong district, Vientiane grow maize on a commercial basis.
The company this season has been encouraging 283 farming families in eleven villages to grow 343 hectares of maize, the district agriculture and forestry office deputy head Mr Somdeth Boupphakham told Vientiane Times during a visit made to the district with the company on Tuesday.
Maize is one of the priority commercial crops for the district to improve people's living conditions, he said.
The project requires the supply of low interest loans to farmers for the seed, fertiliser, land clearing and harvesting for collection by the company at the guaranteed price of 1,200 kip per kg, said Mr Somdeth.
He believed that the number of farmers in the district and the area of land planted with maize will increase next year when the benefits of this crop are seen.
The company confirmed that their intention is to create jobs and generate income for local farmers to achieve poverty reduction and create better living conditions and that they would buy all the harvest no matter how much it was.
The farmers are in Ban Samsang (three builds villages) within the district.
A farmer of Sammana village, Mr Sawieng Meunsy, said that this year his family grew only three hectares of corn and he will expand onto more land if he benefits from this year's harvest, while another farmer, Mr Sivay Chanvongsy, grew two hectares as an experiment although he knew that other families grew more than them.
The field visit was led by company president Ms Kheavaly Vongsouthi who went with district authorities mainly from the agriculture and forestry office, and they were able to see that the stems of corn had grown well in the last few weeks.
Production would be good if there was a plentiful supply of rain.
The project has received full cooperation from the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI) in producing good quality corn seed and the agriculture and forestry office in advising on techniques for planting and looking after the corn properly.
The company plans to promote farmers in the Ban Samsang (three builds villages) in Xayaboury and Paklai districts of Xayaboury province, which are being targeted for development by the government to grow the crop.
The company also plans to supply ducks and chickens to farmers and families in Sangthong district and Xayaboury where many farmers grow corn as well, which is ideal as chicken feed.
A memorandum of understanding for producing stocks of ducks and chickens was signed between the company and NAFRI last month.
