Lao Organic Farm To Ink Export Deal

An exporter of organic vegetables and fruit, Pakxong Organic Farm, will again sign contracts with buyers from Thailand and the Middle East’s Halal Food Group within the next two weeks.

“We expect to sign the agreements on March 9,” farm owner Ms Inpeng Samuntee said on Wednesday.

Organic vegetables grown by a farm in Vientiane on sale at Lao-ITECC recently.

After the agreements are signed, the farm will start shipping produce within the next 90 or 100 days, “maybe in June or July,” Ms Inpeng said.

During this time, the farm will be very busy planting and tending to seedlings and saplings. They must take good care of the plants to ensure their quality matches that demanded by the buyers.

Ms Inpeng signs new contracts with the overseas buyers each year because their requirements differ from year to year.

“We may need to raise or lower the price of some vegetables or crops depending on the difficulties involved in cultivation and transportation,” she said.

The buyers must make a deposit or provide a bank guarantee of about 30 percent of the purchase price to show they are committed to following through with the total purchase based on the contract.

The 500 hectare organic farm in Pakxong district, Champassak province, grows bananas, pineapples, cabbage, asparagus, peppers, lettuce, onions, carrots, radishes, zucchini, potatoes, ginger, chayote, tamarind, coffee and tea.

When the farm has signed the agreements with the Thai and Middle East buyers, “I will also sign other contracts with some local vegetable and fruit grower groups to ensure the production of quality crops for supply to our farm,” Ms Inpeng said.

These contracts will enable local farmers to grow more crops for export, and will give them a significant income boost as well.

Pakxong Organic Farm is confident it will be able to maintain business with its overseas clients because it signed a logistics service agreement with Lao and Thai companies last March.

Under the agreement, refrigerated cargo trucks will transport fresh organic vegetables from Laos to a warehouse at a Thai port, where they will be packed and loaded onto a cargo plane or ship for destinations in the Middle East and Europe.

Four refrigerated trucks will pick up and deliver crops each week, with each truck carrying 2 to 4 tonnes depending on the crop.

Halal Food Group wants to buy 370 tonnes of fruit and vegetables from the farm annually.

Group representatives often visit the farm to monitor crop production, and return at intervals to make further checks until the crops are ready to be shipped.

Ms Inpeng is sure they can meet the Group’s requirements because she has a lot of experience working with them and has received organic certification from them previously.

The farm has grassland where cattle graze. The animals are reared for their meat and also for the manure they produce, which is used for vegetable cultivation.

The farm uses fertiliser made from animal dung, rice straw, waste vegetables and rice husks.

published with the permission of Vientiane Times