What is Vietnam rice’s look?

“This is the main place of the country to produce rice, but the region’s rice growers are the poorest and having the most difficulties” – the innermost feelings of Doctor Le Van Banh, the Head of the Mekong Delta’s Rice Institute, is probably as anxious as those of this Festival organizers.

*The breakthrough of “maximum productivity”!

According to Professor-Doctor Bui Chi Buu, the Head of the Southern Agricultural Technical Scientific Institute, rice has been the essential food of 39 countries and geographical locations in the world so far. A challenge facing mankind is smaller agricultural areas (1.5 billion hectares) by 2050, less water for irrigation, but double food production. The climatic change will develop very much unexpectedly influencing rice production in the near future. The biochemical technology in agriculture must meet the targets of reducing poverty and food safety.

Green Revolutions have been carried out in the world since the mid 1960s. Vietnam is one of the pioneers in this campaign. In 2000, irrigated rice areas accounted for 65% and have reach 85% now, making important preconditions for the increase of rice production’s productivity. IR8 rice strain was imported to the South of Vietnam in a very early period with the name “Than Nong 8”, to the North with the name “Nong Nghiep 8”. This rice strain has upright leaves, non-photosensible, high yield (5-6 tons/ ha and maximum of 8-9 tons/ ha) and was acclimatized to gradually replace the local traditional rice strain. The international rice testing program before (IRTP) and the international network for genetic evaluation of rice now (INGER) sponsored by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) have created a great opportunity for the international and Vietnamese rice breeders to exploit the results of Green Revolutions. The rice strains used for mass cultivation were CR103 in the North, and Thần Nông 73-2, IR36, IR42, IR19660 in the South. Vietnam has really become the second largest rice exporter in the word for recent years with its rice export of 4 million tons/ year (3 times higher than that of the highest-export year in the past), and 6 billion tons in 2009. According to Professor-Doctor Bui Chi Buu, the question raised for Vietnamese scientists is how to reach the targets: developing rice strains, meeting both requirements of food safety and competitiveness of high quality produce, increasing the rice growers’ income. More exactly, the target is to develop high-yield and stable rice strains to break through the maximum thresholds of 8-10 tons/ ha/ crop, and tasty-grain rice strains to meet the taste of domestic and export markets, and that of more demanding consumption.

A number of technological advances have been handed over to farmers in the Mekong Delta for the past years such as: sowing in rows, integrated pandemic management (IPM), “three downs, three ups”, short-growing-time high yield rice strains, brown-back hopper resistant rice strains, combine harvesters, horizontal grate stoves to dry rice, water saving irrigation, good agricultural practice rice production (GAP) … These advances have changed the practice of Vietnamese rice cultivation considerably.

*Solution of “Four Agents”

Rice provides over 3 billion people with 35-59% of energy. On average, the world’s population increases 1 billion people in 14 years. The ratio of cultivation areas/ head is: 0.45 ha/ year (1966); 0.25 ha/ year in 1998; estimated to down to 0.15 ha/ year in 2050. The rate of productivity increase is low: 2.1%/ year in the decade of 1980s and 1% in the 1990s. The present population of Vietnam is 86.4 million people with 1 million people more in a year recently. Against the numbers of 2001, rice cultivation areas deceases 58,700 ha/ year on the average, the rice cultivation now has decreased by 325,000 ha.

To the development of agriculture, farmers, rural areas, a lot of strategic and comprehensive solutions will be needed in which “the joining of regions and the participation of four agents” (the state, the scientists, the businessmen, the farmers) is very important. To reach this developmental goal, the project “Solution to producing and marketing rice through joining regions and the participation of four agents” should be implemented right away. The general objective of this project is to carry out the resolution on food safety, raising the ability and the participation of four agents to increase sustainable incomes for farmers in the Mekong Delta, particularly for farmers in the west of Hau River in the context of integration to the world’s economy and the global climatic change.

Rice provides over 3 billion people with 35-59% of energy. On average, the world’s population increases 1 billion people in 14 years. The ratio of cultivation areas/ head is: 0.45 ha/ year (1966); 0.25 ha/ year in 1998; estimated to down to 0.15 ha/ year in 2050. The rate of productivity increase is low: 2.1%/ year in the decade of 1980s and 1% in the 1990s. The present population of Vietnam is 86.4 million people with 1 million people more in a year recently. Against the numbers of 2001, rice cultivation areas deceases 58,700 ha/ year on the average, the rice cultivation now has decreased by 325,000 ha. First, we need to join scientific researching bodies such as institutes and universities to apply scientific and technological solutions to selecting rice strains in order to find ones that have stable high yield, high quality grain, pest and disease resistance especially resistance of brown-back hoppers, grassy stunt disease, ragged stunt disease … as well as acclimatized to the ecological sub-region and global climatic change. We should hand over technical solutions in rice production to adjust to economic integration and global climatic change, apply scientific and high technological advances in rice production to have high productivity, high quality grain, to increase the rice value and income for the farmers. We should diversify the forms of economic cooperation to favor a sufficient large-scale production of commodities which makes it easy to take hold in the market and to ensure the output for rice production. We should raise the ability to produce rice and compete for the Mekong Delta, especially for the west of Hau River, from input service, organizing production, storing and reservation, processing and selling rice in which the combining farmers in the chain of supplying rice and building rice trade name should be specially emphasized.

Apart from investment in infrastructures, the improvement of rural areas’ social security, re-planning land in agricultural production, policy toward farmers especially toward rice growers, developing human resources for agricultural sector (including research, management, and production) … are very important. We need long-term strategy for production and selling of rice in which there is the joining of regions and “4 agents”. Each agent should have its concrete responsibility. Only if all the agents fulfill well their tasks, rice production will be stable and grow.

At the end of November, 2009, at the time of the Rice Festival, the rice price soared making farmers excited and businesses optimistic to think of 6 million tons rice export for the year. However, overall, there are still difficulties and challenges ahead for the Vietnamese rice. Not only Hau Giang but also provinces and cities in the whole country have speeded up the implementation of comprehensive agriculture toward: high-technology agriculture, fast increase of the ratio of mechanization to reduce losses in harvesting”, said Hau Giang provincial party committee secretary Nguyen Phong Quang. It is hoped that after the Festival, scientists and administrators will paint a prosperous portrait of Vietnamese rice in the 21 century.

Article, photo by CAO PHONG