Farmers harvest sugarcane in the Mekong Delta. (Photo: SGGP)

Shortly, the company will apply these buying rates on sugarcane-growing households in Hau Giang Province. However, many farmers said that with such buying price, sugarcane farmers will make a precarious living as all investment costs for sugarcane cultivation have increased.

In recent years, growing sugarcane was no longer profitable or even loss-making so many farmers in the Mekong Delta have simultaneously destroyed their sugarcane fields. In Hau Giang Province, from 2018 and earlier, the area of sugarcane was from 10,580 hectares of sugarcane upwards while it is merely 5,900 hectares this year.

In Long An, Soc Trang, Ben Tre, Tra Vinh, and Kien Giang provinces, thousands of hectares of sugarcane were chopped down by farmers to shift to growing fruit trees and vegetables, and aquaculture. The departments of Agriculture and Rural Development concerned that if the price of sugarcane remains at a low level in this sugarcane crop and farmers continue to suffer losses, the area of sugarcane will be reduced more drastically.

By Nguyen Thanh – Translated by Bao Nghi