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Laos: Sweetcorn shortage to affect exports
Canned fruit and vegetable producer Lao Agro Industry Company is facing a reduced supply of sweetcorn after its farms were flooded last week .
“Over 1,000 hectares of sweetcorn in Vientiane province were flooded during the many days of rain last week,” a senior company official, Mr Chanin Awakulpanich, said yesterday.
The company works with farmers to grow sweetcorn on over 1,500 hectares in the province, with farms mostly lining the banks of the Nam Ngum River.
“All the farms along the riverbank have flooded,” Mr Chanin said.
Farmers normally supply 30 to 40 tonnes of sweetcorn to the company's processing factory per day, but currently have very little produce.
“At present, they can only supply 10 tonnes every two or three days,” he said.
The company had hoped to have about 1,500 tonnes of sweetcorn at its plant this month and a similar figure for next month, “but we can only hope for about 300 to 400 tonnes for each month now,” Mr Chanin said.
Fortunately, some farmers have plantations on high land. “But they are disappointed because they worked for over two months on their crops only to be flooded.”
The farmers often step up their planting activities prior to the wet season each year, when it is anticipated that their farms will flood in August and September.
But this year the flooding has come very early,” Mr Chanin said.
The company has reported the issue to provincial authorities and is also preparing a report for the involved ministries.
It is also preparing to inform foreign customers of the short supply of sweetcorn, which will slow the production of canned goods.
The company has a large number of foreign buyers in the UK, France, Germany, Poland, Vietnam and Thailand.
In addition to canned sweetcorn, the company produces pickled garlic and cabbage, rambutan in syrup, baby corn in brine, bamboo shoots, sweetcorn milk and palm seeds on its 5-hectare site in Thoulakkhom district, Vientiane province.
It produces 3,600 tonnes of canned fruit and vegetables per year, about five percent of which are sold on the domestic market, with the remaining 95 percent exported.
The company sources raw materials from forests and farms in Luang Prabang, Xieng Khuang, Borikhamxay and Vientiane provinces, although some vegetables are imported.
It has three certificates - Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) and British Retail Consortium (BRC). The accolades are internationally accredited and indicate production and product quality.
vientiane times
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