Vietnam southern delta switches to large-field farming

Many provinces in the Mekong Delta have set the model of large paddy fields for the summer-fall crop, after the model proved better profit than individual farmers working in their own small fields.
The fields range between 100 and 2,000 hectares, many of them in An Giang Province.

Doan Ngoc Pha, deputy director of An Giang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the province has more than 3,000 hectares of large paddy fields for the coming crop.

An Giang Plant Protection JSC and An Giang Import and Export Company invested the seeds, fertilizers, pesticides for the fields, Pha said.

Officials from the companies also provide technical instructions to the farmers and promise to buy all the rice.

In Dong Thap Province, ten fields of more than 1,500 hectares have gathered nearly 1,200 farmers planting rice with Viet GAP (Good Agriculture Practice) standards.

During the past winter-spring crop, rice production on fields larger than 1,000 hectares in An Giang Province cost 30 percent less than the sum of individual small fields.

Nearly 500 farmers attending in the model made more than 150 percent of profit with eight to nine tons of rice harvested per hectare.

Bui Ba Bong, deputy minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that delta provinces should renovate their farming methods to the “large field” method to save cost and increase productivity.

The farmers should try to establish connection to businesses to have loyal customers as well as to get good help for preserving and processing their rice after harvest, Bong said. – SGGP

Tags: Vietnam rice, Vietnam Rice prices