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Tapioca maker to expand production capacity
The Lao Indochina Group Public Company Tapioca Factory plans to add two additional production lines by the end of this year to boost the output of tapioca.
“We must have four production lines to produce at least 600 tonnes of powder from 2,400 tonnes of cassava per day,” company Chairman Mr Sengmaly Sengvatthana said at a press conference on Thursday.
The company's tapioca factory, located in Naxone village, Pakngum district, Vientiane, will expand capacity due to the increased supply of cassava it receives.
Currently the factory has two production lines and can produce 320 tonnes of tapioca from 1,200 tonnes of cassava each day. “However, we're now getting 1,600 tonnes of cassava a day,”Mr Sengmaly said.
“Cassava production has increased sharply, and I expect it will continue to increase next year because I see that farmers continue to grow more crops.”
The supply has been increasing since early last month and the factory has had to create extra space where the cassava can be offloaded. It is also working with the Naxone village authorities to find empty land where cassava trucks can park.
Some 200 to 300 trucks deliver cassava to the plant daily and currently have to queue for 2 or 3 kilometres as they wait to unload.
“About 30 percent of the cassava supplied to the factory comes from farmers who are members of the company. The rest comes from farmers who intend to register as members,” Mr Sengmaly said.
Those farmers who are not company members used to grow cassava for sale to traders, but the traders no longer come to buy their crop. “So now they're selling their cassava to us, which has created a sharp increase in the amount of cassava we're getting,” he said.
“But we are pleased to buy everything they can grow, 24 hours a day, because the plant is operational 24 hours a day. If we don't take their crop, farmers will see a huge impact on their incomes.”
The company pays the farmers about 1 billion kip per day. “We pay at least 500,000 kip per tonne of cassava, both to farmers who are members and to those who aren't,” he added.
The company now has 7,689 hectares under cassava cultivation, which provides employment opportunities for over 2,713 families in 171 villages.
Last year, over 2,000 farming families earned about 40.8 billion kip for their cassava crop, including growers in Sangthong district in Vientiane, Hom district in Vientiane province, Borikhan district in Borikhamxay province, and other farmers. Each family is paid an average of 15 million kip per season.
Some 90 percent of the factory's output is exported to China while the rest is sold locally.
vientiane times
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