Vietnam's floating rice that grows with the floods: at two tonnes per hectare, can it become a raw material for Japan?

There is a traditional rice that, during the Mekong Delta's flood season, extends its stem to 3-5 m to keep pace with the rising water level. In Vietnamese it is lúa mùa nổi, and in Japanese it is called floating rice. A Vietnamese agriculture-and-environment paper dated September 24, 2026, conveyed how, for this rice that Le Thanh Phong, deputy director of An Giang University's climate-change research institute, has followed for over a decade, the weight has shifted from preservation that fences it in as a genetic resource toward returning it to the fields as a crop that fetches a price on the market. The yield is 2 tonnes/ha, a level that local reports too describe as low. Even so, buyers are appearing. For Japanese food managers sourcing ingredients from Vietnam, let us confirm, with figures from local reports, what this rice can and cannot supply now.

An Giang University has continued seed collection and restoration since 2014

The seeds could be protected, but no reason to plant them remained

According to the source article, it was around 2014 that An Giang University's research group collected traditional floating-rice varieties and began work to purify and restore (phục tráng) them. In 2018, one old floating-rice variety, Nang Tay Dum (Nàng Tây Đùm), was analyzed, and the research continued. But protecting the seeds was only halfway, and what remained, the paper writes, was the question of who would plant it if it generates no economic value.

Old traditional varieties do not necessarily have the traits the current general rice market favors, such as aroma, softness, and stickiness. Their strength lies rather in tolerance of deep water and harsh flood conditions. Merely harvesting and selling it as ordinary rice does not turn that strength into farmer income. To put a price on a low-yield crop, decide the buyer and the form first There was a need to do that.

In 2025, a company that sees it differently appeared

What the paper conveys as Phong's account is this sequence: in 2025 a company that could develop products making use of this rice's traits appeared, and after that, a linkage of local government, researchers, companies, and farmers was formed step by step in the Tu Giac Long Xuyen (Long Xuyen Quadrangle) region.

This is easy to misread, so let us draw a line. The source article writes neither the company name nor the contract amount, and stays at a description of the stage where a linkage is being formed. It does not write that full-scale trade as a processed ingredient has begun. What the original shows is a transitional process moving from preservation research to growing-area formation.

VND 14,000-15,000 is attached to a rice yielding 2 tonnes

Planted area around 300 ha, yield 2 tonnes

The source article has no figures for area, yield, or price. So we pick out and line up only the figures that can be verified from the paper's past articles.

The meaning of the price changes with which stage it is for

VND 14,000-15,000/kg is the purchase price of paddy (lúa), and VND 25,000-26,000/kg is the price of milled rice (gạo). Lining up two different stages and computing a multiple misses the reality. Paddy at VND 15,000/kg, converted at about VND 163.6 to ¥1 as of September 25, 2026, is about ¥92/kg. The paper writes that milled floating rice is valued in a niche market and can sell at two to three times ordinary rice. But this too is a figure comparing milled rice with paddy, and it is a growing-area view of the market. We want to regard it as a separate thing from the price landed in Japan. On the point of how to take the unit price, the case that shipped in the off-season and took twice the in-season unit price, the Hai Phong lotus, is closer in structure.

An Giang was not the only one to move in 2025

Tay Ninh expanded to 112 ha on the strength of the 2024 crop's results

In July 2025, Amana Floating Rice, under the Khai Nam Group, signed a 2025 production-and-consumption linkage contract with a floating-rice service cooperative in Tay Ninh province. The scope is 96 ha in Vinh Chau commune and 16 ha in Tan Hung commune, 112 ha in all (96 + 16 = 112, consistent). The content is to buy the entire volume at a fixed price of VND 15,000/kg, with over 100 households participating. It is an effort within the framework of the climate-change adaptation project CRxN Mekong that WWF Vietnam is advancing.

What the paper cites as the basis for the expansion is the 2024 crop's results: processed goods such as noodles and pho made from floating rice entered the German market and also lined the shelves of Longdan, the UK's largest retail chain for Vietnamese goods, it writes. Entry into the German market and the UK retail chain are separate matters, so one cannot write them up together as on sale in Europe.

The Vinh Gia cooperative has a 20-year framework and a 200-ha plan

The move on the An Giang side came to the surface on May 8, 2026. In Vinh Gia commune of the province, a floating-rice cooperative's inauguration ceremony and the signing of a four-party linkage by the state, farmers, scientists, and a company were held. There are 30 cooperative members, and the representative is Duong Minh Giang. A plan was presented to arrange a raw-material zone of over 200 ha in the initial stage and to project an annual paddy supply of about 400 tonnes. The linkage period is 20 years, and the company side is O Plant-Based Food.

The company explains a plan to set up a pilot workshop locally and develop plant-based foods such as rice bread, sandwiches, pizza, and steamed buns using Nang Tay Dum whole-grain flour. All of this is a description of plans, not a stage where products are being shipped. Meanwhile, the vice-chair of Vinh Gia commune says that with over 13 years of accompaniment by An Giang University, about 75 ha have been restored with old varieties such as Nang Tay Dum and Nang Choi. The actual figure is 75 ha; 200 ha is a planned value This is a distinction one needs to read.

What can Japanese buyers apply to 400 tonnes of ingredient a year?

Pin down the order of magnitude of the volume first

At 400 tonnes ÷ 200 ha = 2 tonnes/ha, the supply plan exactly matches the yield noted above. But the absolute volume is small. Putting one 20-foot container at 18-20 tonnes on a paddy basis, 400 tonnes a year comes to only around 20 containers (the writer's estimate). Even across the whole delta it was around 300 ha as of 2021, and adding Tay Ninh's 112 ha and Vinh Gia's planned 200 ha brings it into the 600-ha range. It is unsuited from the start to volume-push procurement.

If there is a point of contact, it is limited to small-volume, high-unit-price uses that can tell a provenance story. What runs ahead locally is processed goods such as noodles, pho, and rice bread, all designed to sell flavor and story while keeping a brown-rice or whole-grain form. The case that priced a low-yield material by splitting it into specs by part, the Da Lat artichoke, and the one trying to move into deep processing, the Cau Dat organic Arabica, are a more realistic mat on which to think about it.

Using no pesticides and organic certification are different

Local articles repeatedly convey that floating-rice farmers use almost no fertilizer or pesticides. But this is a description of cultivation practice and does not mean they hold organic certification. The Tay Ninh side writes that cultivation guidance using no chemical fertilizer or pesticides satisfies the conditions of organic agriculture, and WWF is at a stage of setting up a consolidated growing area with traceability as a future goal. If the Japanese side handles it, it starts from confirming the growing-area code, the analytical results for pesticide residues, and the type and scope of certification one by one.

One more point: since it is a crop dependent on flooding, in years when the flood is small, growth slows and rat damage appears too, the paper writes. Rather than fixing quantity with a single-year contract, placing a multi-year allocation with some leeway fits practice better.

If sourcing floating rice, when and whom to approach

Area and point of contact by growing area

The cropping runs about six months from sowing around the fifth lunar month, with harvest falling at year-end as the floodwater recedes. Unless the Japanese side gets its talks in during the first half, before planting is decided, it cannot get onto that year's volume.

The first three numbers to go after

1. The actual planted area of the 2026 crop and the variety breakdown (the ratio of Nang Tay Dum to Nang Choi)
2. The quoted paddy price, the milling yield, and a clear statement of which stage the delivery is at
3. Analytical results for pesticide residues, the growing-area code, and the presence and scope of certification

Until these three are in place, moving on to talk of quantity or price does not mesh. Conversely, now that the points of contact are narrowed to a cooperative and a university, it is easy to enter to build a relationship from small volumes. But the two growing areas are in different states. Tay Ninh, though on a single-year contract, has a buyer decided for the entire volume and also has an export track record for processed goods. Vinh Gia has a 20-year linkage framework and a company's commitment to stable purchase, but on the product side it is still at the development-plan stage. Rather than cutting into a flow already moving, going to decide the uses together at Vinh Gia, where a pilot workshop is about to be set up, is the wider entry point. Whichever you approach, the first half before the 2027 crop's planting is decided becomes the time to consult.

Sources

• Hồi sinh giống lúa mùa nổi bằng giá trị thị trường (September 24, 2026)
• Hồi sinh lúa mùa nổi bằng liên kết '4 nhà' (May 8, 2026)
• Phát triển nông nghiệp sinh thái thích ứng với biến đổi khí hậu (August 20, 2026)
• Trồng lúa mùa nổi 'thuận thiên' để xuất ngoại (July 22, 2025)
• Lúa mùa nổi không phân, không thuốc (November 2, 2021)
• Độc đáo giống lúa lóng vươn dài 3 – 5m (August 16, 2021)
• Nâng tầm giá trị lúa mùa nổi (October 3, 2021)