Ninh Thuan: farming stopped on 15,000 ha due to drought hinh anh 1Illustrative image (Source: VNA)


Ninh Thuan (VNA) -
The south-central province of Ninh Thuan has to stop farming on over 15,000 ha of land in this year’s summer-autumn crop due to a serious shortage of water.

During the 2019-20 winter-spring rice crop, farming had to be stopped on nearly 8,000ha because of lack of water.

Luu Xuâan Vinh, chairman of the province People’s Committee, said there has been seven years of drought in the last 10 years.

In many places, farmers have had to stop farming for a long time because of drought, he said.

To mitigate the effects of drought, the People’s Committee has ordered localities to identify clearly and zone areas for crops and animal husbandry.

Priority will be given to high-value crops that require less water, the People’s Committee said.

The country’s driest province has 21 reservoirs with a combined capacity of 194 million cubic metres of water, but they only contained nearly 30 million cu.m of water now, with some running dry.

To mitigate the effects of drought, the People’s Committee has ordered localities to identify clearly and zone areas for crops and animal husbandry.

Priority will be given to high-value crops that require less water, the People’s Committee said.

The province plans to develop 12 hi-tech vegetable growing areas on a total of 1,640ha, four hi-tech grape and jujube growing areas on 700ha, two hi-tech cow breeding areas on 150ha and two hi-tech goat and sheep breeding areas on 250ha by the end of this year, according to the department. 

The province will develop three hi-tech aquaculture areas.

In the last three years, Ninh Thuan has spent more than 2.3 trillion VND (98 million USD) to upgrade 63 irrigation works, increasing the total irrigated area to 53.7 percent, up 4.1 percentage points from 2015.

Besides switching to other crops on rice fields, the province also plans to switch to two rice crops a year from three to save water./.

VNA