Agricultural commodities, processing and products
Crop products and commodities
Changes brewing in coffee industry
The coffee industry is restructuring itself to raise productivity, quality and value, according to the Việt Nam Coffee and Cocoa Association. Under the programme, the area under coffee is being kept at 600,000ha and there is a focus on planting new trees with higher productivity ...
Contract farming could unlock value chain: experts
A visiting delegation of agricultural experts suggested that Cambodia’s struggling rice industry should develop a contract farming model that if used systematically would help confront the complicated supply chain dynamics that bog down smallholder farmers. The Global Institute for Tomorrow, a Hong Kong-based think tank, ...
Rice millers pass health check for China trade
More than half of 50 rice millers that applied for export permits to China passed a health and safety inspection by a visiting Chinese team, though they will have to wait for official confirmation from the Beijing government before they can begin exporting, an Agriculture ...
Banana farms ordered to stop
Chinese farms in Laos’ provinces have been suspended due to their ongoing use of hazardous chemicals which are having negative impacts on people’s health and the environment. The Prime Minister’s Office’s ordered the farms which are preparing to cultivate banana trees to cease their efforts ...
Strong demand boosts exports to CLMV
Exports to Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam continue to rise due to strong demand in the neighbouring countries, where the economies continue to grow, according to the Office of Industrial Economics. Ittichai Yotsi, director of the OIE’s Bureau of Industrial Economics Research, said exports to ...
Bad weather threatens to put a damper on sugar harvest
Unfavourable weather has delayed Thailand’s sugar crushing season, threatening a reduction in sugar output for the 2016/17 crop. The drop will prevent Thailand, the world’s second largest sugar exporter, from capitalising on rising global sugar prices at a time it is being challenged by Brazil ...
Vietnam’s cocoa receives “fine flavour” designation from Int’l Cocoa organisation
Viet Nam has become the second Asian country to achieve a fine flavour cocoa designation from the International Cocoa Organisation. Forty per cent of the country’s cocoa exports have received this designation. Indonesia was the first Asian country to receive the recognition in 2011, but it ...
Dry season rice plan under consideration
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is considering whether the figure for this year’s dry season rice plan should be revised downwards or remain stable after the last four harvests failed to reach the target. Last dry season, farmers planted only about 99,000 hectares or ...
As labourers leave Myanmar delta, farmers struggle to mechanise
On a recent November morning, farmer U Soe Myint Aung was busy collecting rice from his harvester and loading it into bags. It is heavy work but still he knows he is lucky; with 17 acres of paddy field situated along a road in Kwinyar village, ...
The Philippines to buy rice from Myanmar
Myanmar’s Ministry of Commerce revealed that the Philippines has offered to ink a government-to-government treaty to buy rice from its fellow ASEAN country. “The Philippines has offered to buy rice. More detailed discussions are needed [for the treaty]. Currently, it imports rice mainly from Vietnam. ...
