The food aid will go to eight provinces in the impoverished central region and four in the Central Highland coffee belt, the Saigon Gaily Prong (Liberation Saigon) daily cited a government directive on Wednesday as saying.
Government reports show more than 200,000 people in the central region incorporating the Central Highlands face food shortages after their crops were damaged by floods late last month that failed to end a drought.
Agriculture officials said the drought is likely to affect production of rice, corn and cotton in the winter-spring period ending in April. Traders and industry experts said grain sales to the central region could significantly lift prices in the Mekong Delta rice basket unless the government stepped in with food aid.
This week the government said Vietnam's paddy output this year rose 3.5 percent to 35.87 million tonnes. Corn output in 2004 is estimated at 3.45 million tonnes, a rise of 17.7 percent.
More than 60 percent of Vietnam's grain is produced in the country's south. Vietnam exported an estimated 4.06 million tonnes of rice this year, up from 3.92 million tonnes in 2003, official statistics show.
Traders said the figure did not fully include up to 400,000 tonnes sold illegally to China this year. Industry experts said the country is capable of exporting up to 4 million tonnes of the grain next year.