Farmers harvest the 2021 - 22 winter - spring rice in Dong Thap’s Cao Lanh district. (Photo: VNA) One of thecountry’s main rice producing provinces, it grows three crops a year on morethan 500,000ha, and has an annual output of 3.3 million tonnes.
It growsvarious types of high quality rice like Ngocdo huong dua, Huyet rong, Lut do, Nanghoa, Than nong xanh, ST 24, andST 25 to Vietnamese and global good agricultural practices (VietGAP andGlobalGAP) and other quality standards.
Ngoc do huongdua,for instance, is delicious and soft and has the delightful flavour of pandanleaves. It is grown to organic standards by the Dinh An Seed Cooperative in LapVo District.
More and morerice co-operatives growing high-quality varieties on large areas have beenlinking up with companies to have guaranteed buyers.
The My Dong 2Agriculture Services Cooperative in Thap Muoi District, for instance, hascontracts with companies to grow the grain on more than 1,000ha.
My Dong 2 usesadvanced techniques and has mechanised all stages of cultivation until harvest.
It usesalternating wet and dry irrigation techniques with automatic pumping facilitiesto save water, smart fertilisers to fertilise rice just once and drones tospray pesticides to mitigate their adverse impacts on farmers’ health.
The use ofsowing machines helps the co-operative reduce the quantity of rice seeds to 60kilogrammes per hectare from 80kg under traditional methods.
Ngo Phuoc Dung,Director of My Dong 2, said the cooperative’s income was 5-8 million VND (220-350 USD) per hectare more than from traditional farming methods.
The provincehas taken various measures to help companies and farmers choose high-qualityvarieties for cultivation to improve quality and value.
Nguyen VanNguyen, chairman of the province’s Farmers Association, said a contest wasorganised recently to enable farmers and companies to promote their varietiesand seek new varieties to diversify.
The contestalso honoured researchers and farmers who grow clean and high-quality varietiesusing environment-friendly methods.
The provinceis encouraging linkages between farmers and rice producing and tradingcompanies for growing high-quality rice on a large scale for export.
In the 2021-22winter-spring crop the province planted 189,125ha and is expected to have ahigh yield of seven tonnes per hectare. Besides, it expanded the cultivation ofhigh-quality varieties and use of advanced farming techniques.
Huynh Tan Dat,deputy director of the province Department of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment, said localities had been instructed to use advanced farmingtechniques like ‘one must and five reductions’, integrated pest management andproper use of irrigation and fertilisers.
These hadhelped rice crops grow well, reduce costs and improve quality and farmers’incomes, he added.
Conversion
Dong Thapfarmers have switched to perennial fruits and other crops or rotating betweenrice and other crops on more than 10,000ha of unproductive rice fields since2021.
Of the fields5,000ha are under perennial fruits like mango, orange, mandarin, jackfruit, andlongan and the rest grow short-term crops like corn, sesame, red chilli, sweetpotato, taro, lotus, and beans.
Le Van Ngot inThap Muoi District’s My Hoa commune rotates rice and lotus on his 4ha field andearns more than 300 million VND (13,100 USD) from each lotus crop.
The rotationalso prevents the spread of rice disease pathogens, he said.
Besides, heprovides tourism services on his lotus field during the flooding season to earnmore money.
The province,well known as the land of pink lotuses, has 800ha under the flower, mostly inThap Muoi, Cao Lanh, Thanh Binh, and Tam Nong districts.
The incomefrom short-term crops is two or three times as that from rice while perennialfruits fetch up to eight times the income, according to the department.
Dat said: “Theconversion of rice fields is aimed at saving irrigation water, bring back soilfertility and prevent the spread of rice disease pathogens.”
The departmentwas encouraging farmers whose rice fields are unproductive to grow high-valuecrops, he said.
The provinceplans to convert around 9,400ha of rice fields this year, according to itsPeople’s Committee./.
VNA
