New strains to lift maize yields
The Swiss company, a global leader in the
field of crop protection and agricultural biotechnology, launched a
programme last year to transfer maize cultivation technology to farmers
in Vietnam 's key corn growing areas. These include the northern
mountainous area, the Central Highlands and the Red River Delta.
The company also supplied seeds of a new hybrid variety to these areas.
Pickering said initial results were
encouraging, adding that he hopes the maize varieties, which are
resistant to herbicide and corn borers, will be approved by the
Government for commercial production.
In addition to
good seeds, technical advances are necessary to increase yields, Deputy
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh said.
For this autumn-winter crop, the company worked with Van Nam
Agricultural Co-operative to provide farms with hybrid maize seeds as
well as pest management solutions to improve yield.
The Asia-Pacific region has the largest corn growing area, but
productivity is often low. In Vietnam , maize fields have an average
yield of 4.3 tonnes per ha. The country has to import 9 million tonnes
of maize for feed production annually.
According to predictions,
more than 1 billion USD will be spent to import about 4.5 million
tonnes of corn from now until the end of this year. Last year, the
country spent more than 4 billion USD on agricultural material
imports.-VNA