A district People’s Committee in the Mekong Delta province of Bac Lieu has recently had to use its budget to buy back 120 tons of rice which local farmers grew and were unable to sell under a research project it assigned. In 2011 Hong Dan District assigned local farmers to grow the rice, planted from a new seed called red-dust rice, on a 52-hectare area, under a scientific research project conducted by Associated Professor and Doctor Vo Cong Thanh from Can Tho University. Farmers were granted VND500,000 per hectare under a program that cost the district’s budget VND2 billion. But they ended up being unable to sell the red-dust rice, which is not attractive to traders, who were worried that the grains were mixed with impurities due to their red husks. As a result the district authorities had to earmark VND900 million to buy back the rice from farmers. They have since managed to sell 30 tons to a company in Ho Chi Minh City, according to an official from the Agriculture Bureau. Earlier the Bac Lieu People’s Committee warned against Hong Dan district’s implementation of the rice growing program, as the red-dust rice has yet to be tested as per law.