As Japanese firms mull growing rice in Vietnam, Vietnamese farmers might be switching to other crops. Rice consumption is gradually waning, and the country enjoys a comfortable surplus; the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is currently in discussions to shift 200 hectares of low-productivity rice areas to growing corn. (Currently, land registered as rice land cannot legally be transferred to growing other crops, in order to maintain the land quota). The move would support the rapidly growing livestock industry, which currently depends on costly imported corn.