Ways in Rice Cultivation Need a Change

During a long time, the transformation of rice area for other purposes has taken place en masse and out of planning. Localities have been racing to attract investments in building industrial parks, levelling wet rice fields that their ancestors had cultivated for hundreds of years. Fields have been transformed into factories because industry will ^{more income for localities. Plants can be built anywhere as long as convenient transport.}

During seven years between 2001 and 2007, the total area of farming land reclaimed to turn into non-farming land was up to 500,000 hectares, equal to 5 per cent of farming land fund. Worriedly, the quick transformation in two big plains is related to food production. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the countrys farming area for rice cultivation was 4.1 million hectares in 2006, down 316,000 hectares against 2000. The rice area shrinks average 50,000 hectares each year. Mekong Delta sees the strongest shrink of 175,000 hectares of land, followed by eastern south region with 51,000 hectares and Red River 36,000 hectares. Another calculation of the Department of Co-operative for Rural Development under the Ministry of Agriculture showed that each hectare of land reclaimed affects 10 agricultural workers. The reclamation of farming land has hurt the life of 2.5 million people, worsening unemployment and increasing the population in big cities. 

 

Red River region has the highest rate of rice area loss in the country, 2.5 times higher than the average level. In Mekong Delta, a large number of localities have adjusted to raise the area for industry, such as Long An targets to raise industrial area from less than 10,000 hectares to 30,000 hectares by 2010. An Giang Province plans to reduce by 17,000 hectares of farming land by 2010 and 31,100 hectares by 2020. The Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Pham Khoi Nguyen said many localities earned much profits after having transformed agricultural land into industrial parks, but noted that this is only short-term profits. Investors pouring money in any project also pay attention to profits. Therefore, few investors dare to invest in building infrastructure, factories and companies in mountainous areas with difficult transport, but almost seek to invest in agricultural areas by big roads. 

 

However, the use of land for industrial purposes has not been effective. The area of land for hire in industrial parks in the country is fulfilled by 50 per cent, as for land with good infrastructure. The rate is only 33 per cent as for natural land of industrial parks. In Mekong Delta, the rate of land for rent is reported at 35 per cent against the land area available for rent. As for the area of natural land (land in industrial zones), the used rate is only 25 per cent. It means that two third of land area for industry in the country is unused. The figure in Mekong Delta is three fourth.

 

Land area is shrinking and rice production faces difficulties, while the population increases average 1.2 per cent annually. In 2007, Vietnams population was 85 million people, which is fore to reach to 93 million people by 2015 and 98 million people by 2020. Although local people will have less and less rice, the countrys rice and paddy demand will still rise as increasing population scale, higher demand for husbandry, processing industry and stockpiling.

 

Worried about the shrinking area for rice cultivation during the process of industrialisation, the governments Prime Minister has signed a Decision asking to review and examine the total area of land across the country, paying special attention to agricultural land in general and wet rice land in particular. Working boards have been established in key provinces in agricultural production. The prime minister emphasised that the land examination must be carried out both on municipal and communal level, which will be the collation to the common results of the whole country. The prime minister guided: localities are not allowed to approve the planning on transforming wet rice land for the purposes of production, non-farming services, except for some essential cases. 
 
Protecting the land area for rice cultivation is also an important content in the project of Rice and paddy production development to ensure the national food security by 2015 and 2020 built by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. In the project, the ministry has proposed first to investigate the situation of rice area to compare with fores on food security by 2015, 2020 and until the population is s in order to determine rice land area to be protected.

 

The second step is to classify rice land. The type of land for best production need to be strictly protected in the long term, and can not be transformed for any other purpose. The type of rice land with irrigation and average effectiveness can be transformed only into growing short-day crops or trees for cattle food. The ineffective rice land out of planning for irrigation investment can be wholly transformed.

 

The Ministry of Agriculture has also suggested changing the legal mechanism whereby the government and National Assembly will supervise, manage and transform farming land instead of authorising peoples committees of provinces, districts and communes to make decision on converting land using purpose as pursuance to the Law on Land 2003. The ministry has also proposed the state to have policies to support intensive rice farmers when the income from rice production decreases.

With fluctuations in food prices in the world, natural disasters resulted from global climate changes and the risk of rising sea level, ensuring the food security is the top concern of many countries in the world. 
 

Besides shrimp, basa catfish, rice is now the "fashion" tree in Mekong Delta, the countrys biggest rice granary. Tens thousands of hectares of fruit trees and gardens, ponds have been quickly transformed into rice cultivation. Several years ago, these wet rice fields were levelled to dig ponds for shrimp cultivation and fruit planting. Local people have still run after the market fluctuations without any long-term orientation. The movement of transforming into rice cultivation is so strong that environment activists worried the destruction of forest to grow rice can have bad impact on the living environment.

 

Not only people rushing to cultivate rice, some enterprises have also started to set up specific plans to grow rice tree, a sector which no enterprise had been interested in so far. The small division of land, and small production scale is a big barrier for the process of industrialisation and modernisation of agriculture sector. However, the food scarcity and rice and paddy price fevers in the world have helped change thinking about this issue. Some enterprises are seeking opportunities to invest in rice production instead of investing in only trading, processing and exporting. Mr Phan Huy Thong, Deputy Head of Farming Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, affirmed that the investment of enterprises in rice farming is a good movement and proper to the governments policy. He claimed that the state always encourages businesses to invest in s material areas. As for rice exporters, the ministry is currently also establishing rice area for export, with the area of one million hectares in Mekong Delta. Rice growing enterprises will have conditions to invest in technology, researches, import of best rice varieties, land reclamation, and effective farming techniques. Enterprises will have more advantages in effectively raising capital and human resource to improve the productivity and quality of food.

 
The most difficulty is to accumulate land and fields to grow paddy and product rice. The model of Rubber Corporation is an example. Each hectare of rubber tree of farmers will be converted into the stake in the company. Then, farmers will work as workers and be paid. As for contributed land area, the contributor, apart from gaining annual profits, will have additional profits if the value of rubber forest increases after several years. By doing so, people will feel devoted to the enterprise. The business will also be active in investing in technology, seeds and input products for the land area they possess, be active in buying materials for processing, trading and exporting. 
 
The increasing price of paddy and rice has also exaggerated the concern on the post-harvest loss of up to 13 per cent, while the loss in advanced countries such as the U.S., Australia is only about 7 per cent. Some enterprises are arranging proper investments in this phase to reduce 5 per cent of loss after the harvest. Whereby, the total food output of the whole country can be raised by millions of tonnes each year.

 

Vietnamese farmers, although having grown rice for a long time, have been still unable to get rid of poverty, despite rising food prices. Protecting the rice growing area and investing in agricultural production with new thinking of the world will help develop the rice cultivation profession in Vietnam, improve the life of farmers, and ensure food security.