According to the Vietnam Pepper Association (VPA), in 2013, the country’s pepper output was only about 95,000 tons, but in the first 7 months of the year, it exported 94,000 tons. Weighing the inventory from last year, it is still 5 months from now until the harvest of the new pepper crop, but the supply of pepper for export is less than 15,000 tons.
Area increased, output decreased
For many years, Vietnam has been an export powerhouse pepper No. 1 in the world, but this industry is showing 2 big paradoxes. First, the area increases, the output decreases. In 2011, the whole country had 53,000 hectares of pepper with an output of 125,000 tons; in 2012 is 57,500 ha, output 115,000 tons. In 2013, the whole country’s pepper area increased to 60,000 hectares, but the output was only 95,000 tons. Pepper accounts for only 2.5% of the total area of nearly 2 million hectares of 5 industrial crops in our country, but accounts for over 8% of export value. The economic value of pepper is currently about 6,800 USD/ha/year, 4 times higher than rubber, 8 times more cashew nuts, 2.6 times higher than coffee and 6 times higher than tea. Pepper growers can earn a profit of 200-250 million VND/ha/year.
However, this is also one of the reasons why planting pepper of many localities is broken. In recent years, because of high profits from pepper cultivation, farmers in the Central Highlands have massively cut down coffee, cashews, etc., and switched to growing pepper, in which many lands are not suitable for this variety. More worrying is that pepper varieties of unknown origin can lead to the spread of diseases, causing great damage.
According to a survey by the Department of Crop Production, currently, the average yield of pepper has decreased to only 2.4 tons/ha (in 2010 it reached 3-3.5 tons/ha). Dong Nai is the province with the largest growing pepper area, an increase of about 1,000 ha compared to 2011 but the yield decreased from 20.1 quintals/ha (in 2011) to 14 quintals/ha (2013). In Ba Ria – Vung Tau, productivity pepper the average also decreased by 1.4 quintals/ha, to only 17.2 quintals/ha. The disease situation on pepper is still not under control and there is a risk of exacerbation. According to the plan, the whole country’s pepper area is 50,000 ha, but so far the actual planting area has exceeded the planned number, reaching over 60,000 ha.
With the situation that people invest according to the movement, it will easily lead to loss of control over the supply and quality of products, while the import markets require increasingly high quality criteria. Therefore, experts say that it is necessary to have a plan for sustainable production development. The abuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides will affect the food hygiene and safety of products and the living environment of pepper plants. To avoid reducing yields, the risk of pest outbreaks forces growers to use a lot of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The vicious cycle continues and is a factor that strongly affects the production, processing and export of the pepper industry. Therefore, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development needs to take measures to control the situation of planting pepper massively like today.
Be cautious in transactions in the last 5 months of the year
The second paradox of the pepper industry is that, while the harvest volume decreased, enterprises massively exported too much in the first 7 months of the year, causing the export price to decrease by 4%. Enterprises said that pepper prices in the 2012-2013 crop year on the world market were affected by information about increased supply released by speculators to force prices. In fact, global pepper production was recorded at only 310,000 tons, down from the previous season. Some pepper industry experts said that Vietnam needs to be very alert to the “information” of international pepper speculators.
In Vietnam, the pepper harvest season starts from January to April every year, so there are still 5 months left before the new harvest season. As noted by VPA, pepper prices at exchanges in India and import prices of European and American markets are increasing again. The reason is supply pepper There are not many of the main producing countries in the world such as Vietnam and India. Meanwhile, the output of other pepper growing countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia is not high.
VPA believes that pepper prices will increase sharply in the near future, because there are only about 15,000 tons of pepper in stock in the country. Much information has dropped sharply, so foreign traders are pouring into Vietnam to purchase. While world demand is still increasing, supply will decrease in many main producing countries, which will create unpredictable developments. This confirms that pepper prices in the last months of the year will still be surprising.
VPA recommends: Enterprises need to be very careful in signing export contracts in terms of quantity, delivery time, price, payment method… in order to avoid “ruffled” contract, “ruffled” payment, leading to lawsuits where risks and losses often belong to Vietnamese enterprises. Currently, foreign traders are increasingly buying pepper to hoard for speculation, so businesses should not rush to sign export contracts when they do not have goods in hand, because if they sign first and buy later, the risk of pepper price will increase more than the price that the enterprise has signed for export, easily leading to losses.
Follow: Chu Khoi (KTNT)
Source link
