Floods delay Delta rice planting in Vietnam

Farmers in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta, the country’s biggest rice granary, have planted the winter-spring rice crop late because of the slow retreat of floodwaters and persistent high tides, raising fears of a drought later during the crop and saltwater intrusion.

Le Van Banh, head of the Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute, said farmers had planted only around 500,000ha by December 10, or just a third of the planned area.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development envisages planting a total of 1.55 million hectares.

The schedule for planting seedlings was divided into two periods — November 5 to 30 and December 5 to 30 – with 700,000ha completed in the first.

The ministry had warned farmers that late planting could see a drought and intrusion of saline water at the end of the crop.

In An Giang, one of the provinces worst hit by floods, farmers have planted a mere 10,000ha of the planned 235,000ha.

Farmers in Dong Thap Province have planted 40,000ha, a fifth of the targeted area.

The two provinces are now expected to finish the planting by January 20, according to agricultural authorities there.

Local authorities in the worst-hit provinces — Dong Thap, An Giang and Long An — are providing farmers with financial support to pump floodwaters out of paddy fields to plant rice seedlings.

The Government has decided to provide assistance worth VND460 billion (US$21 million) to the delta to cope with the aftermath of the flooding, pump water out of fields, and help farmers buy rice seeds for the winter-spring crop.

IR 50404, a low-quality but high-yield rice variety that is popular in the delta, has or will be planted on around 20 per cent of the area, according to the institute.

In the remaining area, farmers will grow high-quality varieties for exports.

This year the delta’s paddy output reached 23 million tonnes, 1.5 million tonnes more than last year and accounting for 55 per cent of the country’s total output, according to figures from the local agriculture departments.