Agriculture Sustainable Development in Its Sights

Agriculture Sustainable Development in Its Sights

Hau Giang's natural area is 160,720 hectares, of which over 92 per cent is farm land. Over the past few years, the province has made positive changes in agricultural production. This can be seen in the structure of production and product, in which the high-quality rice area covers 50,000 hectares, sugarcane 10,300 hectares, pineapple 1,500 hectares, and aquaculture 2,000 hectares. Most of the 7,500 hectare water covered areas are located in Phung Hiep and Long My districts, and Vi Thang, which yield about 15,750 tonnes of aquatic products. Many of the fishery-VACR models (garden, pond, cage and forest) are reported to have a production value of VND40-50 million per hectare and consequently play an important role in the restructuring of agriculture in the market economy.

Based on comparative advantages, Hau Giang's agriculture sector has set up specific seed, seedling and animal breeding programs. The technology will be developed over 80,000 hectares for high-quality rice cultivation to yield 950,000 tonnes and will combine four partners on a trial basis (the State, enterprise, scientist and farmer) to apply scientific technology in production and to ensure the targeted output. Around 10 hectares of orchards along Hau River with specific fruits, such as mandarin, mangosteen, Nam Roi grapefruit and mango, will be put aside for tourism purposes. The pineapple and sugarcane cultivating area will be expanded in parallel with programmes to build processing plants so as to diversify the products, meeting the increasingly high requirement of the market.

• H.X