SWEET CORN TO SOUTH KOREA COSTS 180.000 VND/CORN

In Bac Giang, besides traditional winter vegetables, currently, food corn (vegetable corn, sticky corn, sweet corn) is being expanded in the winter season due to easy planting, less care, low risk and especially high economic value.

In particular, sweet corn is the object of crops being highly appreciated by farmers for economic efficiency, especially favorable for consumption due to the fact that many businesses purchase and export.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thao, Director of Loc Dien Trading Co., Ltd. (with headquarter in Tan Phu, Ho Chi Minh City), an enterprise specializing in purchasing, processing and exporting agricultural products, said that the company currently has 2 processing factories, one in Bac Giang and one in Hai Duong. The main winter vegetables in the North which are purchased, processed and exported by the Company are sweet corn and chili. In particular, sweet corn is a key export product, traditional of the Company and is in great demand for export with high value.

In the North, there are currently about 4-5 factories specializing in purchasing, processing and exporting sweet corn products to many markets, with an average output of 80-100 tons/day/factory.

Loc Dien Trading Co., Ltd has now linked, invested materials and signed contracts to buy stable sweet corn for farmers in the Northern provinces such as Son La, Hoa Binh, Tuyen Quang, Bac Giang ... and are plans to expand more in many provinces.

Ms Thao said that currently sweet corn is exported whole corn (in reefer containers), or cut 5cm, steamed to export to many markets such as China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea ... In particular, South Korea is a market with great demand and potential for this product.

“Currently, each sweet corn is being purchased by factories for farmers at an average price of 5,000-7,000 VND/kg (beginning of the crop is 7-10,000 VND/kg). In the market, fresh food retails on average only 5,000 - 7,000 VND/corn. However, when exported to South Korea, they sell in supermarkets with the selling price of Vietnamese dong up to 180,000 VND, which is very popular among Korean consumers, ” Ms Thao said.

For the Chinese market, currently Thao's company also regularly exports whole-grain sweet corn in large quantities in the winter season. She said that because the winter of China is too cold, the winter sweet corn in the Northern provinces now exporting to China has an advantage and huge demand because the Chinese side cannot grow this product in the winter crop.

Besides the advantage of the winter crop, sweet corn can now be grown favorably, with good yield and quality in the spring crop in the northern provinces as well as many southern provinces and purchased and processed around by export enterprises around the year.

Ngoc Ly is a semi-mountainous commune of Tan Yen district (Bac Giang). Previously, farmers mainly clung to rice, but now, the movement of restructuring from rice to crop, especially winter vegetables, food corn is growing, bringing a lot better incomes for farmers.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh, Cau Dong 9 hamlet, Ngoc Ly commune excitedly said: In this winter crop, in addition to more than 6 poles of family, she also borrowed more land from households without production needs to grow sweet corn, with a total area of 2.5 samples. Only from 60-70 days after planting, sweet corn gives an average yield of 6 quintals/pole, which is purchased by the export companies as well as traders at the field with an average price of 6,000 VND/kg.

Calculated, each pole gives an average income of 3.5-3.7 million, minus costs, each star for interest from 2.5 to 3 million. In the winter crop this year, her family expects an income of 50-60 million VND, which seems to have a source of spending for a Tet, not much worry.

“Previously, each sao of rice was more than 3 months, making it very hard but minus the cost of the crop, the profit was only 600-700 thousand VND. Corn cultivation now has everything from tillage, to beds, rooting ... all have machines, quite leisure, but give 3-4 times higher profit than rice. So now my family has transferred 100% of the rice land to grow corn all year round, each year turning around 4-5 generations of harvest, of which mainly sweet corn ”- Ms. Minh said.

Ms Nguyen Thi Chi, an extension officer of Ngoc Ly commune, said that this year, the whole commune has more than 200 hectares of winter crops, mainly chili, cabbage, tomatoes ..., of which food corn is still the target. The commune's main crop is over 100 hectares, of which mainly sweet corn. With high economic value, sweet corn is expected to be greatly expanded by farmers in the near future.

Despite the potential and advantages for food corn products in general, including sweet corn in the winter season in the Northern provinces.

However, the most difficult problem for processing and exporting enterprises is still the problem of linking in production and consumption, stabilizing the source of raw materials.

Accordingly, the current companies are difficult to link to stabilize the source of sweet corn for export processing due to its dependence on the domestic free market. At high prices, farmers sell products out, causing a lot of difficulties for businesses, because the contracts are often signed with partners right before seeding. Therefore, cooperatives and cooperative groups need more sustainable cooperation contracts to stabilize production.

In the winter of 2019, F1 Hi-brix 58 sweet corn hybrid has been highly appreciated by farmers and export enterprises and included in the production linkage chain for export in many localities.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Lieu, a farmer in Ngoc Ly commune (Tan Yen district, Bac Giang) has many years of experience in planting sweet corn. The corn crop in winter, especially late winter crop, often suffers from diseases such as rust, shale, gold leaf ... However, the advantage of Hi-brix 58 is that it is very clean, so the whole crop almost does not need to be sprayed with pesticides.

Corn Hi-brix 58 very big, closed tip ball, with corn up to 600-700 g/corn, average yield of more than 6 quintals/pole. “At the moment, the corn crop is finished, the farmer also comes to the field to collect the leaves to make food for cattle with the price of 150-200 thousand VND/pole. Hi-brix 58 variety has corn husk, leaves are green and freshly harvested, so it is very suitable for making fodder ”.

According to the evaluation of exporting enterprises: Hi-brix 58 is suitable for export due to its large corn, nice model, closed ball tip. Besides, the eye-catching dark green shell, very good for exporting whole corn. Corn Hi-brix 58 has thin skin, spicy corn, small core and very light, so the percentage of fresh grain corn (except shell, core) is very high, reaching over 65%. When harvested in excess, the corn grain is not wrinkled, plump, so the ratio of corn is uniform, reach the export standards almost absolute.

If the current sweet corn yield is only 12-13 tons/ha, Hi-brix 58 gives an average yield of 15-16 tons/ha. Through testing, it shows that this is also the sweetest maize variety, which is very advantageous for exporting both fresh and processed forms (steamed, powder...).

Hi-brix 58 is a F1 hybrid sweet corn, produced by Advanta Group, imported and distributed by Vietnam Vegetable Seed Co., Ltd. - VECOSEED.

Source: https://m.nongnghiep.vn