Floods ravage Asia's rice bowl

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Floods ravage Asia's rice bowl

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Experts say that food prices have hiked and farmers burden has increased after flood devastation.

06 October,2011 11:03 am

Massive floods have ravaged vast swathes of Asias rice bowl, threatening to further drive up food prices and adding to the burden of farmers who are among the regions poorest, experts say.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.In Thailand, the worlds biggest rice exporter, where 237 people have died in the floods, about one million hectares of paddy -- roughly 10 percent of the total -- have been damaged, they say.Heavy rains in Laos and Cambodia have also led to big losses in recent weeks, and experts say flood waters have now drained into Vietnams Mekong Delta, a key global rice producer, making it the latest to be inundated.Further west, flooding of rice and other farmland in Pakistans arable belt has cost that country nearly $2 billion in losses.The flood damage comes on top of worries about the impact on global rice prices of a new scheme by the Thai government to boost the minimum price farmers receive for their crop.Vietnam meanwhile is the worlds number-two rice exporter and the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam accounts for half the countrys production. Dong Thap and neighbouring An Giang, which abut Cambodia, have been the worst affected in the delta.The UN, citing government sources, says 11 people have died, more than 20,000 homes are flooded and 99,000 hectares of rice are at risk in Vietnam.In Cambodia, more than 330,000 hectares of rice paddy have been inundated, of which more than 100,000 hectares are completely destroyed, said a senior official at the Ministry of Agriculture.Cambodia, where more than 160 people have been killed in the floods, exports only a fraction of total rice production but the crop accounts for about 7.5 percent of gross domestic product.Laos, one of Asias poorest nations, has also suffered, according to reports in state-controlled media there. Tropical storms which struck since June killed at least 23 people in the country and damaged more than 60,000 hectares of paddy, the reports said.Vo Tong Xuan, a Vietnamese rice expert based in the Mekong Delta, said a major contributor to this years floods has been the unusually heavy rains in Thailand and Laos, which drain down through the Mekong.Experts say the deltas expanding system of dykes adds to the problem. They prevent water circulation in some places but provoke floods in others, said Bui Minh Tang, a weather forecaster.Vietnam News, the communist states official English-language daily, reported that the lost rice crop in Dong Thap province alone was worth $2.7 million.