Food group Loc Troi pays rice farmers after delay, apologises

Agricultural services and food conglomerate Loc Troi Group JSC announced on Tuesday it had completed payments for the 2023-2024 winter-spring rice crop to farmers in the Mekong Delta after a delay of more than one month.

A company representative claimed it had planned to borrow from banks to pay the farmers in time.

By mid-April, it had purchased over 300,000 tonnes of the grain for VND2.5 trillion ($98.1 million), but only paid farmers VND2 trillion ($78.4 million) despite arranging for cash from partners and accepting low prices for dry rice it sold to pay for rice purchases from farmers, he said.

On May 20, the company took out a loan from Tien Phong Bank to pay the remaining amount, he added.

In a press release, Huynh Van Thon, the company’s chairman, said he, on behalf of more than 3,000 employees, offered "sincerest apologies to farmers".

The company also said that it is completing procedures for a loan of $90 million from the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank, and negotiating with domestic and foreign banks for medium- and long-term financing and short-term capital flows to minimise “bottlenecks" in the future.

As of May 14, Loc Troi has exported nearly 100,000 tonnes of rice for nearly $63 million, it said.