Good signs for early autumn-winter paddy rice

Many provinces in the Mekong Delta are still harvesting summer-autumn rice. However some areas have come into early autumn-winter rice harvest in 2021 which is expected to have a bumper crop.

Can Tho farmers begin to harvest early autumn-winter paddy rice. Photo: Le Hoang Vu.

Higher yields than summer-autumn rice crop

Located on the south bank of Hau River, Can Tho City is less affected by early upstream flooding, autumn-winter rice planting areas were sown early since the end of June. So far, most of autumn-winter paddy fields are in the ear and ripening stage. Some fields in the districts of Thoi Lai and O Mon are harvested. It’s expected that the autumn-winter rice crop will be at peak harvest from September 15 to October 15.

Despite the complex situation of the pandemic, it’s surprising that the area of autumn-winter rice crop in 2021 in Can Tho City increased to 70,000 hectares (higher than 58,000 hectares as planned). This has been the highest number for the autumn-winter rice crop over the past many years.

Many farmers said that since June 2021, they started to see the situation of Covid-19 getting worse in the neighboring provinces, transport of agricultural and aquaculture products facing difficulties while rice market was more stable. Therefore, many farmers in crop rotation areas switched to planting rice on nearly 12,000 hectares.

Tran Thai Nghiem, Deputy Director of Can Tho Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said: Through field trips in many localities he realized although costs of input material skyrocketed, especially fertilizers, farmer still took care of rice well.

This year’s autumn-winter rice crop is expected to be good with an average yield of 6 tons per hectare, higher than summer –autumn 2021 and above average yield of autumn-winter in the past few years (5 tons/ha). It’s projected that Can Tho will harvest 400,000 tons of autumn-winter paddy rice.

Facilitating harvest and consumption

Currently, a survey has showed that there were around 240 combine harvesters in Can Tho city with a capacity of 36,000-40,000 hectares during a peak month of rice harvest. The rest area may lack harvesters and need to find supply from neighboring provinces.

Can Tho Department of Agriculture and Rural Development planned to ask CanTho Provincial People’s Committee and localities to control diseases and facilitate harvester owners and workers to enter the areas to promptly harvest rice for farmers. In addition, localities should propose Covid-19 vaccination and quick test for workers harvesting autumn-winter paddy rice.  

According to Nghiem, in terms of the consumption of autumn-winter paddy rice, Can Tho maintained 30,000 hectares of large-scale rice fields in the link with nearly 20 enterprises. At present, for autumn-winter paddy rice in the districts of Co Do, Thoi Lai and Vinh Thanh, many traders come to see farmers and pay them VND300,000 -VND500,000 per 1,000 m2 as a deposit.

Can Tho Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is working with relevant departments and agencies as well as districts to quickly and flexibly take measures on controlling pests and diseases so that traders and enterprises to take vehicles to the fields to buy paddy rice for farmers.

In the autumn-winter rice crop of 2021,Truong Thanh Phong in Tan Thanh commune, Thoi Lai district (Can Tho city) sowed high-quality OM5451 rice variety on 17,000m2 of his field. During this crop, Phong has promoted mechanization and synchronously applied advanced techniques in production. Thanks to that, he achieved better yields on his field with 850 kg of fresh paddy rice per 1,000 m2.

Especially, although this rice crop is taking place in the context of the pandemic, farmers in the communes of Tan Thanh, Thoi Thanh an Xuan Thang (Thoi Lai districts) are very happy because they have received VND300,000 per 1,000m2 of paddy rice as a deposit from traders and high-quality rice varieties are sold for VND5,200/kg or more.

“The autumn-winter rice crop of 2021, the weather was generally quite favorable although costs of input materials increased sharply. However, thanks to stable rice yields and many traders coming to buy paddy rice qualified for export, after deducting all costs, farmer can earn VND1.5 milliomn –VND1.7 million per 1,000 m2”, said Phong.

Meanwhile, Dong Thap is harvesting the rest area of late summer-autumn paddy rice and begins to harvest early autumn-winter paddy rice.

In the autumn-winter rice crop of 2021, Dong Thap planted rice on approximately 120,000 hectares which were all in the flood -managed zone. The harvest is expected to take place from September to November 2021. In which, the districts of Cao Lanh and Thap Muoi undertake the earliest rice harvest in the Mekong Delta.

Particularly, for Thap Muoi district, Bui Van Son, Head of the district’s Office of Agriculture and Rural Development said that up to now, there were about 2,000 ha out of 36,000 ha of early autumn-winter paddy rice at peak harvest with an average yields ranging from 5.2 to 5.5 tons/ha. About 2,200 workers were involved in harvesting, transporting paddy rice in the district.

To facilitate harvesting and consumption of paddy rice, Thap Muoi district created favorable conditions for farmers, combine harvester owners and traders to travel but they must comply with measures on Covid-19 prevention and control.

Huynh Minh Tuan, Vice Chairman of Dong Thap Provincial People’s Committee said: to ensure the process of harvesting autumn-winter paddy rice in 2021, the provincial People’s Committee asked Vietnam Northern Food Corporation and Southern Food Corporation and their member units as well as businesses to promptly support the purchase of rice in Dong Thap province.

Focusing on taking care of autumn-winter rice crop

Le Huu Toan, Deputy Director of Kien Giang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said by the beginning of September 2021, the province sowed 87,360 hectares of autumn-winter rice and the production is estimated at 470,000 tons. Thus, if there is no unusual event of weather and diseases in the last month of the year, the province will reach a total of 4.4 million tons of paddy rice, higher compared with set target.

Not only focusing on production development Kien Giang also invited businesses, farmers groups, cooperatives to associate and sign contracts to buy paddy rice for farmers.

Kim Duong Lieu, Director of Rach Gia Organic Farming Cooperative (Kien Giang) said: The cooperative associated with localities in the province to develop sustainable raw material areas to process into rice for consumers.  Specifically, in the autumn-winter 2011, the cooperative signed a contract to buy all paddy rice grown by two cooperatives in Vinh Phong communes, Vinh Thuan district with an area of 80 hectares.

According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Kien Giang province, in addition to focusing on harvesting the rest area of summer –autumn paddy rice and taking care of autumn-winter paddy rice of 2021, farmers are also focusing on planting rice in the 2021-2022 crop. The province’s area of rice cultivation in the 2021-2022 rice crop is nearly 61,000 hectares and production is expected to reach 309,415 tons. Of which most of rice cultivation area is on rice-shrimp farming area and a part of early winter-spring rice crop (2021-2022 winter-spring rice crop) in the districts of Upper U Minh region where production depends much on rain water. The harvest will take place from mid-December 2021 to the end of January 2022.