Snakehead fish farmers in the Mekong Delta Province of Tra Vinh were in despair because masses of dead fish have drifted in rearing ponds and prices of fish plummeted down.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) on March 27 held an online meeting to summarize preliminarily the winter-spring rice crop, deploy the production plan for the summer-autumn, winter, and autumn-winter rice crops this year in Southern and Mekong Delta provinces.
According to the departments of fisheries of provinces in the Mekong Delta, the prices of material shrimps have continuously dropped steeply in the past days, raising concerns among shrimp-farming households.
The Department of Irrigation of Tien Giang Province on March 21 said that the salinity level has slightly dropped but still nailed at high levels from 2 per mille to 6 per mille upwards so most people in Cai Lay, Chau Thanh, Cho Gao districts, My Tho City, and Cai Lay Town could not get water from rivers to water their crops as well as to use for daily living needs so authorities have continued to use barges to transport fresh water to save 13,000 hectares of durian trees affected by drought and saltwater intrusion.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, this year’s saltwater intrusion in the Mekong Delta region is more serious than the 2015-2016 dry season. It comes earlier with higher level of salinity.
On the last days of February, farmers in the Mekong Delta have entered the peak harvest season of the winter-summer rice crop. Despite the impacts of saltwater intrusion and drought on coastal areas, most farmers have enjoyed a bumper crop and the price of paddy has also increased compared to at the beginning of the crop.
Not only the Southern region is warned to battle for drought and saltwater intrusion this year but also the Northern region is suffering the lack of irrigation water due to less rainfall on the large scale during recent several months.
The Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection of Kien Giang Province on November 13 said that farmers in Tan Hiep, Chau Thanh, Giong Rieng, Go Quao and Hon Dat districts have sowed around 52,600 hectares out of 289,000 hectares of winter-spring rice crop, accounting for 18.2 percent of the plan.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development yesterday announced more than 12,593 hectare of infertile paddies in the Mekong delta has been converted to grow fruits to earn good income from the beginning of the year.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development held a conference to review the production of the autumn-winter rice crop and the seasonal rice crop of 2019 and deploy cultivation plan for the upcoming winter-spring rice crop in provinces in the Southeast region and the Mekong Delta on October 11 in Tien Giang Province.
