Monthly Archives: March 2015

Businesses have bought about 760,000 tons out of one million tons under the Government’s rice stockpiling program this year as of March 29, reported the Vietnam Food Association (VFA).

This is considered to be a great effort by the businesses because the purchase was very slow early March. With this momentum, they have to plan to buy all one million tons by April 15 when the program ends.

VFA is said to have assisted some companies to access bank loans to purchase rice for stockpiling.

Vietnamese businesses have signed contracts to export two million tons of rice this year. Of this number, they have delivered 540,000 tons.

Rice farmer Nguyen Hien Thien is so busy growing his crops that he has never even visited Can Tho, a town only a few miles from his farm in the southern Mekong Delta.

“When I was a child, we grew one crop of rice per year — now it’s three. It’s a lot of work,” 60-year-old Thien, who has been farming since he was a child, told AFP on the edge of his small paddy field.

Experts say Vietnam’s drive to become one of the world’s leading rice exporters is pushing farmers in the fertile delta region to the brink, with mounting costs to the environment.

The communist country is already the world’s second largest exporter of the staple grain. But intensive rice cultivation, particularly the shift to producing three crops per year, is taking its toll on farmers and the ecosystem.

“Politicians want to be the world’s number one or two rice exporter. As a scientist, I want to see more being done to protect farmers and the environment,” said Vietnamese rice expert Vo Tong Xuan.

A major famine in 1945 and food shortages in the post-war years led to the government adopting a “rice first” policy.

This now generates far more of the crop than needed to feed Vietnam’s 90 million population and has catalysed a thriving export industry.

Rice yields have nearly quadrupled since the 1970s, official figures show, thanks to high-yield strains and the construction of a network of dykes that today allow farmers to grow up to three crops per year.

The amount of land under cultivation in the Mekong Delta has also expanded and quotas are in place to prevent farmers from switching to other crops.

But experts are questioning who really benefits.

According to Xuan, farmers don’t reap the rewards of the three crop system — the rice is low quality and they spend more on pesticides and fertilisers, which become less effective year by year.

Vietnam, world’s third largest rice exporter and fifth largest rice producer, is embracing older rice farming techniques such as floating rice or deep water rice. The concept, which was given up gradually over the last five decades is again gaining popularity due to the ecological, social and economic benefits associated with it.
Before 1975, floating rice cultivation was very prevalent in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. It accounted for nearly 500,000 hectares of Vietnam’s rice area. However, it’s proportion gradually declined reaching some tens of hectares by 2012. Introduction of high-yielding varieties and agricultural intensification are said to be main reasons for a decline in floating rice cultivation area.
However, the government as well as the environmentalists have recognized that the novel methods of rice farming have led to water scarcity, agro-chemical pollution and soil infertility in the Mekong Delta. So, they have decided to re-expand the area under floating rice cultivation.
Under this type of cultivation, rice is first grown on rainwater until flooding occurs in mid-August. The stalks of the rice plants grow along with the level of flood water. When the water level begin to recede in November, the rice plants lie flat on the ground, flower and produce grain and be ready for harvest by December. The average yield from this type of cultivation was about 2.5 tons per hectare. During flooding season, farmers also harvest wild fish inside the flooded fields gaining double income. The floating rice area also provides an important habitat for birds also
his type of rice cultivation requires no pesticides and a very small amount of chemical fertilizer would suffice, and soil fertility is naturally maintained through the deposition of rice stalks as floods recede. It is also known to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester carbon as farmers do not burn the straw.
In the dry season, farmers grow several upland crops cassava, Chinese onion, egg plants, pumpkin and chillies. Income from floating rice system is much higher, say farmers.
With the disappearance of floating rice system, wild fish also disappeared thereby reducing an income source for farmers. They say though the modern systems of rice farming have increased yields, a lot of health concerns due fertilizer and pesticide residues have also increased. Therefore authorities are again planning to increase acreage under this system.