Vietnam rice: rains may delay harvest by two weeks

Unseasonable rains in Vietnam's Mekong Delta rice basket has hurt crop production and may delay the harvest by two weeks, traders said on Wednesday.
They said rain in recent weeks when the dry season was to have begun, coupled with salivation in the area, have damaged young rice plants in some coastal areas. "Many farmers have to replant the rice that died from rains and some have run out of seedlings," said a Ho Chi Minh City-based trader who was surveying the delta's crop.
"The winter-spring harvest could be delayed to start in March in stead of late February," he said.
Vietnam Television said crop-eating yellow snails have been rampaging in the leading growing province of Dong Thap, largely because bird flu has reduced the number of ducks, which eat the snails.
Farmers were shown manually picking the snails from rice fields, which has slowed the crop production.
A harvest delay in Vietnam, the world's second-largest rice exporter after Thailand, could affect rice tender schedules in the Philippines, one of Vietnam's top regional buyers along with Indonesia and Malaysia.
Last on Friday and official at theNational Food Agency, the rice-importing arm of the Philippine government, said the agency planned an import tender next year and hoped prices would ease with start of Vietnam's harvest. Last week Manila bought 350,000 tonnes of rice for January to March delivery, 342,308 tonnes of which from Vietnam.
"Asia is the area with rice demand next year," said Nguyen Thai Nugget, general secretary of the Vietnam Food Association. Traders said Africa might also place orders. In the past week Vietnam sealed a deal to ship 24,000 tonnes of 5 percent broken rice to Africa in January, a trader said.
Meanwhile no deals were made for loading this month. Vietnam was estimated to have shipped a record 5.18 million tonne of rice in the first 11 months of this year and could ship 5.2 million tonnes for the whole of 2005, the association said.
It said shipment this month would ease to 70,000-80,000 tonnes from 140,000 tonnes planned earlier after the government has asked exporters to slow loading to help stabilise rice prices during the December-February period between crops.