Natural disasters
October 7, 2011
About 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) of paddy fields in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos have been damaged or are at risk from the worst floods to hit the region in years, officials say.
Experts say flood waters are now running off the land into Vietnam's Mekong Delta, a key global rice producer, making it the latest area to be inundated.
United Nations chief of disaster reduction Margareta Wahlstrom said in a statement,"The whole region will now suffer from rising food prices as potential harvests have now been devastated. The damage is very serious this year and it will be some time before people can resume their normal lives."
Damage suffered
In Thailand 244 people have died in the floods and about one million hectares of paddy - roughly 10 percent of the total - have been damaged.
The UN says 11 people have died in Vietnam, more than 20,000 homes are flooded and 99,000 hectares of rice are at risk.
A senior official at the Ministry of Agriculture, Ngin Chhay, in Cambodia said more than 160 people have been killed in the floods, more than 330,000 hectares of rice paddy are under water, of which more than 100,000 hectares have been completely destroyed.
Cambodia exports only a fraction of its total rice production but the crop accounts for about 7.5 percent of gross domestic product. A rice farmer told AFP that,"I am worried we might not have enough rice to eat this year and next year."
In Laos tropical storms which struck since June killed at least 23 people and damaged more than 60,000 hectares of paddy.
Vietnam goes ahead with exports
Despite the natural disaster at home Vietnam has shipped a record 5.87 million tonnes of rice in the first nine months of this year, up 9.1 per cent compared with the same period last year, Truong Thanh Phong, chairman of the Vietnam Food Association (VFA) said on Thursday.
According to VFA, Vietnam plans to export 1.2 million tonnes of rice in the fourth quarter, bringing the total for the year to a record seven million tons.
The association predicts that exports are likely to benefit from the new Thai government's policy of guaranteed prices to its farmers, increasing the price of Thai rice, Vietnam's biggest competitor, on the international market. Hanoi exported 6.75 million tonnes of rice for 3.23 billion dollars in 2010.
Agencies: AFP, dpa (mj)
Editor: Grahame Lucas