Singapore Company taps Vietnam for farm product exports to Asia

[Viet]

An Olam International plant in Vietnam used Australian almonds instead of American almonds after the U.S.-China trade war ensued. © Reuters


SINGAPORE -- Singapore-based agricultural trader Olam International has positioned Vietnam as an export center for Asia, including China, amid uncertainty springing from the trade friction between Washington and Beijing. The strategy is symbolized by a massive pepper plantation in central Vietnam the size of roughly 150 baseball stadiums.

Located two hours by automobile from Pleiku, a city in Gia Lai Province, the plot of land was acquired in 2016. There, Olam cultivates disease-resistant pepper varieties in specialized facilities where the heat, humidity and water levels are automatically monitored.

The group plans to reap the first harvest as soon as next year, and produce 2,000 tons a year by around 2024. The crop will be transported to a processing facility in Dong Nai Province further south, and the final products will be shipped to leading consuming markets around the world.

Vietnam accounts for about 40% of global pepper production, and roughly 60% of trade in the commodity. The country's climate and soil properties are well suited for pepper cultivation, and the government has championed the farm produce as a strategic export.

Olam started trading in peppers in Vietnam in 2004, expanding to cleaning and sterilization in 2008 and taking on grinding the product two years later.

By May of next year, Olam will start up a pepper processing plant that will double capacity. The trader ensures a steady supply of raw material by running its own pepper plantation.

Peppers grown at Olam's farm in Vietnam's Gia Lai Province will be ready for harvest next year. (Photo by Takashi Nakano)


Olam, which does business in 67 nations worldwide, chose Vietnam to house the largest base of its Asian operations due to the country's highly educated workforce. Because hires are able to quickly develop technical capabilities, the company expects to attain elevated productivity.

Vietnam is able to produce 3.5 to 5 tons of pepper per hectare annually, according to Olam's research, far exceeding India and Indonesia, where crop performance hovers between 0.5 and 1.5 tons per hectare.

Production rates of coffee and other farm products in Vietnam also outpace yields in other countries.

Farmers abroad are only interested in domestic market prices, said Amit Verma, Olam's country head for Vietnam. Domestic farmers, however, strive to know the outlooks of international markets, even asking about futures in the London market. Cashew processing facilities are blessed with highly dexterous workers that sort nuts, Verma added.

Because Vietnam is part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, almost all farm products can be exported to other members tariff-free. That facet drew Swiss food giant Nestle to the country, where it started an instant coffee plant in summer of last year.

Charoen Pokphand Foods, the crown jewel of Thailand's largest conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group, will expand its Vietnamese chicken-processing facilities. CP Foods will transform what is a domestic-focused operation into an exporting enterprise.

In 2017, Olam began operating an almond processing plant in Dong Nai Province. The facility took in fresh almonds shipped from Olam's farms in the U.S., and delivered the final product to China. But the trade war resulted in stiff retaliatory tariffs against America-derived almonds, so the company shifted to its Australian farms as the supply source.

Vietnamese workers sort cashews at Olam's plant in Dong Nai Province. (Photo by Takashi Nakano)


Olam taps its vast network of global production and export hubs to flexibly adapt to changing market conditions. In Vietnam alone, the trader has 22 cultivation and processing centers. Employees in the country number roughly 5,000 people, and the head count is set to grow 30% by 2021.

The company aims to expand highly profitable operations, such as producing custom spices for client food manufacturers.

Because Vietnamese consumers are gaining purchasing power in step with economic growth, Olam is lifting the ratio of products shipped within the borders. Its domestic share will rise to between 15% and 20% in five or six years from roughly 10% currently, said Prakash Jhanwer, Olam's president and regional head of Southeast Asia and China.

While Olam is actively investing, earnings have been uneven lately. The company took in 15.9 billion Singapore dollars ($11.7 billion) in sales during the first half of the year, up 16.2% from a year earlier. But net profit shrank 8.5% to about SG$230 million. The return on equity wallows at 5.3%, far removed from the 12% goal set in the medium-term plan.

To improve finances, Olam has decided to withdraw from rubber, wood products, fertilizer and sugar operations. The company will concentrate resources primarily on spices and edible nuts. In Vietnam, its lumber business is on the chopping block.

On the sustainability front, Olam is coaching Vietnamese farmers free of charge on how to cultivate high quality peppers at low cost. Farmers in the program are not obligated to sell the company their harvests.

"In the past, we suffered mass deforestation because of herbicides; now crop yields have become stable," said a participating farmer.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Tra...taps-Vietnam-for-farm-product-exports-to-Asia

 

[Viet]

Singapore, the oil sheiks of Asia

@Mista

 

[Mista]

Singapore, the oil sheiks of Asia

@Mista

Nah we aren't lucky as the Arabs which have money flowing up the wells, so we invest our money very carefully.

Anyway, there are more and more Singapore companies venturing overseas in the food and agriculture industry.

S’pore farmers seek greener pastures abroad, and the Republic could be better off for it

SINGAPORE — When Apollo Aquaculture Group chief executive officer Eric Ng realised his fish farm lease in Lim Chu Kang would expire in 2019, the 44-year-old started looking for an overseas alternative.

“Land is very limited here, and the cost of setting up a farm in Singapore is very high… But Brunei has vast land and abundance of sea water,” he said.

Now, he owns a plot of land in Brunei that can produce up to 5,000 tonnes of trouts, groupers, snappers and sea bass when it is eventually operating at full capacity within the next five years. In comparison, he produces about 110 tonnes of fish a year from his farms in Singapore.

The fish farmer was spurred to venture overseas after a trip to Israel about seven years ago, where he accompanied the Singapore authorities overseas to learn about the Israeli’s fish farming technologies.

“We were in the middle of a desert… but if (the Israeli farmers) were asked to leave the place – Israel is always at war – these farmers would be able to pack up overnight and set up the farm at another place to continue farming,” he said.

“That really inspired me to really think about how to make things mobile… The knowledge in creating an environment suitable for the products that you are trying to grow or farm, I think once you have that know-how and soft skill, it’s going to enable you to do a lot more that you can think of,” he said.

Mr Ng is one of a handful of Singaporean growers that have started farming on foreign land, a suggestion some experts felt could help Singapore strengthen its food resilience by securing more sources of food.

Professor Paul Teng, a food security expert at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), felt that Singapore could turn to countries which consistently have agricultural surpluses for contract farming, so that there are better chances of importing food from them during a crisis. These countries include the United States, Argentina and Australia.

However, Professor William Chen, the director of Nanyang Technological University’s food, science and technology programme, pointed out that such a practice was not fail-safe. “If you rely on other people’s land, there is always a risk that the relationship turns sour,” he added.

Even without formal contracts, some Singaporean farmers have ventured overseas.

Former civil servant Lai Poon Piau, 52, recalled how he had to settle for plain prata after the roti prata stall near VivoCity ran out of eggs a few years back, due to the global food crisis which saw prices of food shoot up. It was then that he realised how vulnerable Singapore was, in terms of food security.

Seeking to reconnect with his farming roots - both his father and grandfather owned plantations - Mr Lai eventually acquired 80ha of land in Kampot, Cambodia in 2010 and started farming peppercorns three years later.

Out of the 50 tonnes of pepper he produces each year, only 100kg is being exported to specialty stores and restaurants in Singapore. But he is gradually trying to build up his distribution channels for export. “I would like to sell all of it to Singapore if I can… Eventually, the idea is to use Singapore as a hub to export (my pepper) to other parts of Asia as well,” he said.

For the Singaporean father-and-son pair behind 5th Element, a retail store in Ho Chi Minh City selling organic produce from their 4ha farm in Da Lat, Vietnam, their goal has always been to produce food for Singapore.

Mr Patrick Low, 28, said: “Food security is the main reason we’re in this business as we believe that every individual has the right to safe, chemical-free produce and foodstuff.”

Their farm grows 120 varieties of fruits and vegetables, and harvests 15 to 20 tonnes of processed produce each month.

While the Government has been pushing for high-tech agriculture in Singapore, Mr Low said traditional methods should not be discounted as well, particularly on overseas land that have fertile and suitable climates.

The authorities could also provide technological support for instance, to help improve productivity and raise the quality of the produce grown by Singaporean farmers overseas, he added.

More can also be done by the Government to fund international research and technological developments in farming, some experts said.

Prof Teng noted that Singapore has been slow to support global work on this front, as there are no immediate benefits to local farms. “But we cannot be so short-sighted,” he said. Singapore could indirectly benefit should exporting countries remain productive in agriculture and have sufficient surpluses to export, he pointed out.

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapo...stures-abroad-and-republic-could-be-better-it

Brunei:
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/new...re-cooperation-in-agri-food-industry-11971004

 

[vi-va]

Nah we aren't lucky as the Arabs which have money flowing up the wells, so we invest our money very carefully.

Anyway, there are more and more Singapore companies venturing overseas in the food and agriculture industry.

S’pore farmers seek greener pastures abroad, and the Republic could be better off for it



Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapo...stures-abroad-and-republic-could-be-better-it

Brunei:
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/new...re-cooperation-in-agri-food-industry-11971004

Nah, Singapore is very lucky that you have no oil. Otherwise you will be bombed because of WMD or human right violation, or freedom.