How the Global Economic Crisis affects Khmer-Krom in Mekong Delta

By Sophac Thach
Posted at: kkfyc.org
March 23, 2009

The current global economy has been difficult on people throughout the world; however, the Mekong Delta Region has been hit especially hard. The people in the Mekong Delta Region of South Vietnam had to deal with an entire year of bad farming season that crippled the entire region from the beginning to the end of the year. As for some people in the villages that leave their hometown to the city to seek employment, they are faced with potential layoffs.

In addition to the difficulties, the Khmer-Krom families for instance, have been struggling with poor farming weather. Having a bad year for the farming is one thing, but not being able to sell the harvest crops is the major issues that forces thousands of Khmer-Krom families into deeper debt.

Most of the Khmer-Krom people are farmers in rural villages, and many of them rely on income from farming. The poor financial condition of many of Khmer-Krom forces them to borrow money to buy the seeds and other supplies needed for the farming season. When the year is bad, and when there is little or no harvest due to the poor weather condition, the farmers not only end up without money to support their family, but also ending up with no money to pay off their loan.

With the drastic decreased in the price of rice, many farmers faced with major difficulty of paying back the loan that they had borrowed.

The lives of the Khmer-Krom farmers, it really is unfortunate that they have to face with this kind of faith.

According to a source, there was a high demand for the rice all around the globe in 2008; taking advantage of this high demand, the Government of Vietnam limit the exportation of the rice. This limitation causes the demand of the rice in the Country to decrease. As a result of this, many farmers could not sell their harvest crops to pay for their debts.As the number of debt increases in the household, more and more Khmer-Krom families have to sell their land to repay their loan.

How could the Government of Vietnam still believe that their strategic planning of lifting the poor from poverty is working? How can one government still go on presenting to the world communities that its citizens are in much better condition? Sometime, we have to really have to wonder if this government are putting on a charade for the world communities to see, or are they just out of touch with their citizens.

The most important task for the government to do at this current economic crisis is to save their own citizens from going into deep poverty and not seeking ways to earn extra bucks at their citizens’ expense.