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Tapioca maker sees sharp increase in cassava supply
The Lao Indochina Group Public Company Tapioca Factory expects cassava plantations and the number of its member farmers to increase by up to three times its initial target for this year.
“I've talked to farmers and each seems to have expanded their fields by about one or two times,” company Chairman Mr Sengmaly Sengvatthana said at a press conference in Vientiane on Friday.
The company reported last year that it had 7,689 hectares under cassava cultivation, which provided employment opportunities for over 2,713 families and company members, in 171 villages in Vientiane and the provinces of Borikhamxay and Vientiane.
“We now have around two or three times more members than initially targeted,” Mr Sengmaly said.
The company originally planned to expand cultivation to 10,500 hectares this year, but this may increase by two or three times the initial estimate due to the higher number of farmers, he said.
The increased cultivation of the crop has boosted supply since early last month, meaning the factory has had to create extra space to store the cassava.
Some 200 to 300 trucks deliver cassava to the plant daily and currently have to queue for two or three kilometres as they wait to unload.
The company is working with the Naxone village authorities to find empty land where cassava trucks can park. “Now we have two more hectares for parking, which accounts for about one-third of those trucks,” he said.
Currently the factory has two production lines and can produce 320 tonnes of tapioca from 1,200 tonnes of cassava each day. However, it is now receiving 1,600 tonnes of cassava a day because it is the harvesting season, Mr Sengmaly said.
“There will be no cassava trucks when the wet season comes in June or July because farmers won't grow the crop at that time of the year,” he said, adding that tapioca production will stop for three months until the new production season arrives in October.
“At present, we are spending about 16 billion kip (US$2 million) to add two more production lines by the end of this year to boost tapioca output,” he said.
The factory must have four production lines to produce at least 600 tonnes of tapioca from 2,400 tonnes of cassava per day.
The factory, located in Naxone village of Pakngum district, Vientiane, expects cassava cultivation to continue to increase sharply next year because farmers are gearing up to grow even more crops.
vientiane times
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