N Vietnam, Rice Crop Is More Bountiful, But Farmers Poorer And Poorer

IN VIETNAM, RICE CROP IS MORE BOUNTIFUL, BUT FARMERS POORER AND POORER By Dai Duong, November 2008 As rice prices in the world market shot up like rocket firecrackers, communist Premier Nguyễn Tấn Dũng issued a ban of exports. Seeing that people became more prosperous and well-off by raising shrimps, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng ordered the planning for a " Cam Ranh industrial shrimp-raising zone." As public opinion complained about the inefficiency of the government, Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Cao Đức Phát appeared before the National Assembly to act like a Lê Lai-type savior. In early February 2008, after Vietnam successfully won a bid to supply the Philippines with 300,000 tons of rice at the price of US$340/ton, Manila immediately requested that it continue to buy rice on an emergency basis at the price of US$700/ton. FAO (the UN Food and Agriculture Organization) estimated that rice prices would reach their peak in 2009. As rice prices surpassed US$1,000/ton in mid-April 2008, Vietnam predicted an increase to as much as US$1,500/ton in May. The Nguyễn Tấn Dũng special-interests clique ordered a ban of rice exports in order to "ensure national grain-supply safety." At that time Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Cao Đức Phát observed that the winter-spring crop in the Mekong River delta was to be bountiful and that the 2008 summer-fall crop would be harvested within 90 days. However, the ban would force farmers to sell their rice at cheap prices to state enterprises so as to have cash for their living and for preparing for the next planting season. Farmers had to obligingly sell their rice at cheap prices while such prices as insecticide increased by 50%, fertilizer 71%, feed doubled. As rice prices in the world market suddenly dropped, the Nguyễn Tấn Dũng special-interests clique stopped the exporting of rice for fear of losses; as a result, rice crops, in spite of being bountiful, remained without buyers. Farmers were like being on the brink of death. Addressing the National Assembly on 11-11-08, Cao Đức Phát said "I bear responsibility for having made a wrong prediction for which I accept any form of discipline that the National Assembly may by law impose on me." As rice harvested five months ago remained without buyers, and as the better and cheaper imported rice, mostly from Cambodia, was flooding the Vietnamese market along with flavorful rice from Thailand, the situation has meant disaster for Vietnamese farmers. The state of Vietnam, with sales of the IR 50404 rice seeds, intentionally produced poorer-quality rice which sold at lower prices in the market because it wanted to export more rice so as to be classified as the second-largest rice exporter in the world. Because the Nguyễn Tấn Dũng special-interests clique did not study the overseas and domestic markets and thus failed to know the consumers' increasing preference for flavorful rice, it was responsible for the unfavorable effects dumped on farmers today. All WTO (World Trade Organization) member countries are allowed to subsidize agriculture in regard to water resources, seeds, feed, etc., but Vietnam caused its farmers harm as the result of its failure to carefully study what could be done. The Nguyễn Tấn Dũng special-interests Cabinet lowered taxes and allowed the opening of many activities earlier than the time set by WTO without being able to supply enough standards-complying goods to international distributors, which had to import such goods into Vietnam. In addition to inaccurately evaluating the economic situation thus causing heavy and long-lasting damages to the national budget and farmers, the Nguyễn Tấn Dũng special-interests clique also deprived people in rural areas of their means of living.

Prior to year 2000, Cam Thịnh Đông Village in Cam Ranh, Khánh Hòa Province, had become prosperous thanks to raising shrimps in its coastal land. A farmer with 5 sào of land (1 sào = 360sq.m.) that he used to raise shrimps could earn a relatively stable and well-off living for his family. But in July 2000, the Nguyễn Tấn Dũng special-interests clique ordered the planning for a "Cam Ranh industrial shrimp-raising zone" to cover a total area of 160 hectares, with investment of over 40 billion đồng from the Ministry of Marine Products, now a part of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Each batch of shrimps would receive a subsidy of 13 million đồng, along with the promise that the 5 sào of land would be leased to provide a farmer with cash for his living and that he could take part in the industrial shrimp-raising project. At the end of 2003, as just one-fifth of the work remained incomplete, the Provincial People's Committee approved a period of 70 days for its completion, but the project was actually completed in 2007. And since then as the "Cam Ranh industrial shrimp-raising zone" was not put to use in any manner yet, the 160 hectares of land that had helped to feed many farmers' families now were left bare and idle. According to VietnamNet on 11-11-08, the chairman of the Cam Thịnh Đông Village People's Committee pointed out that "For many years now, the village authorities and the people in the project area adopted and sent many resolutions to the local authorities and the in-charge sectors to seek a solution for this project, but until now there has been no appropriate response." The future of the "Cam Ranh industrial shrimp-raising zone" has thus remained as unknown as that of the fate of those Cam Thịnh Village farmers whose livelihood would depend on raising shrimps, and that as a direct result of the overwhelming power of the Vietnam Socialist Republic state in regard to land sovereignty, and also the inefficiency of the Nguyễn Tấn Dũng special-interests clique in its administering the country's affairs. The (Vietnamese) farmers had joined the Communist Party because of a belief that they would become masters of the land taken from the class of landlord, but for more than half a century they had actually acquired just tiny pieces of land with unpredictable right of ownership. It is rather late now, but these farmers could not avoid comparing their lives and living conditions with those of their counterparts in Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea in order to adjust their own way of thinking. The right of private land ownership, the right of free enterprise, the right of forming independent association, the right of accumulating assets have all been condensed by the community of man in the Declaration of Human Rights. The fact that the farmers' basic and popular rights and freedoms were taken away and trampled over by the communist clique has turned them into mobile slaves To stand up shoulder to shoulder with friends in all five continents, to escape the fate of mobile slaves or to bend their heads and hide their faces in fromt of the peolle in power is a historic choice for the Vietnamese farmers. Article in Vietnamese by Đại Dương Translation by Đức Phương