MANILA, Philippines – Vietnam produces some 40 million tons of rice a year and is the second biggest rice exporter in the world. It grows rice on 7.2 million hectares but you don’t find vast farm estates devoted to rice here. In fact, there are 10 million farming households, each one cultivating about half a hectare to one hectare each. There are some places where rice farmers cultivate just 2000 square meters.
Rice farming is concentrated in the Mekong Delta basin in the south (3.8 million hectares) and in the Red River delta in the North (1 million hectares). The rest are in the middle coastal areas, the middle highlands, the northwest and northeast districts outside the Red River delta.
Two crops of rice are planted in the Mekong Delta where irrigation is provided by some 2,500 kilometers of natural rivers and canals, and 3,000 kilometers of artificial canals. There are also areas where farmers grow a third crop of rice.
In the Mekong Delta, almost every rice farmer is doing direct seeding. They love this system because it is easier to do than transplanting. To prevent the growth of weeds, they apply Sofit, a preemergence herbicide developed by Syngenta, a big multinational company providing crop protection inputs as well as improved seeds of various crops.
The company has a number of chemicals that protect the rice plants from pests and diseases. One of them is a fungicide called Cruiser which is used to coat the rice seeds before sowing or broadcasting in the field in the case of direct seeding.
According to Nguyen Huu Thanh, Syngenta’s pesticide expert, Cruiser protects seedlings from insect damage.
At the same time it significantly improves the vigor of the young plants. He said that crops grow bigger, stronger and greener. Also, Cruiser has been proven to promote the development of a better root system, enabling the plants to withstand stress (such as drought) by inducing the production of proteins for healthy growth.
Another product widely used by Vietnamese rice farmers is a fungicide that comes by the name of Amistar. This controls disease and regulates plant processes that control loss of water vapor, resulting in more efficient use of water.
And speaking of water, the rice farmers at the Mekong Delta are encountering some problems because of climate change. The farmers are complaining about the non-arrival of the usual big floods in the months that start from the later part of August to early November. Because the big floods have not come, the farmers are missing the abundant fish that come with the floodwaters. One farmer was reported in the Vietnam News, an English daily, that he used to catch fish worth $3,200 every time the floods come. But not this year.
It is also observed that the water that flows from Mekong River that starts from China is also diminishing.
It is reported that to sustain the water needs of the farms in the Delta, water should flow at the rate of 1,700 cubic meters per second. Today, the rate of flow is only 1,600 cubic meters per second. One reason identified as causing the diminution of water flow is the fact that China has built 8 giant dams and 23 hydroelectric dams built by Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
One adverse result of the diminishing water flow from the Mekong River and the absence of the usual big floods is that sea water is encroaching on the rice fields near the coast. (More next time)
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