Farmers hit by drought
30-JUL-2008 Intellasia | Saigon Gia Phong | Thanh Nien
Jul 30, 2008 - 7:00:00 AM
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Usually there are heavy rains this time of year, but this year, some 1,300 hectares of Ea Rok Commune rice paddy have dried and withered under the blazing sun. Droughts in Central Vietnam have dried rice paddies to a crisp as malfunctioning irrigation systems make things even worse for local farmers.
Ea Sup District farmers in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak were expecting to harvest a summer-fall rice crop of 70,000 tonnes this year.
Phan Van Hai, a farmer in the district's Ea Rok Commune, said there were usually heavy rains this time of year.
"But with no water to save our rice field, my family will be hungry this year for sure," Hai said, holding a handful of shriveled rice plants.
He said the loss was only made worse by the fact that he lost his entire eight-hectare rice crop to floods last year.
This year, he spent more than dong 40 million on fertilisers and seeds, expecting a 30-tonne harvest.
"Now I only hope to save a few hundred kilograms to save for seedlings," he said.
Some 1,300 hectares of Ea Rok Commune rice paddy have been dried and withered under the summer sun.
The situation in the neighbouring Ia R'we Commune is not any better.
Le Thanh Hai, chair of the commune People's Committee, said after years of poor cashew crops, local farmers gradually shifted to growing 1,000 hectares of rice paddy.
But he said every hectare has been lost to severe droughts this year.
Ea Sup District is the lowest area in Dak Lak Province where water from surrounding areas accumulates.
Statistics show that Ea Sup District's average rainfall at this time of the year is usually up to 1,600 mm.
But this year, the district has only received 225 mm of rain.
Nguyen Dinh Toan, an agricultural official from the district, said the droughts this year had been worse than previous dry spells.
More than 3,000 hectares of paddies half the district's rice area 1,000 hectares of corn fields and 200 hectares of green peas were damaged by the droughts, he said.
Toan said the toll would be much heavier if the drought continued.
There are two irrigation systems in the district, one of which was designed to water more than 9,000 hectares.
But both projects are incomplete and can only bring water to about 1,700 hectares in total.
Another irrigation project in Ea Rok was planned several years ago but has yet to be carried out.
Thousands of hectares of rice in other parts of the central region have also been dried out by droughts over the past two months.
A recent report by the company that manages Quang Tri Province's Nam Thach Han irrigation system said a long dry spell had lowered water levels in rivers and lakes that are used as irrigation reservoirs.
Water could be pumped only a few times a day, the company said, adding that the speed and quantity was too slow to meet the region's demands.
One of Nam Thach Han's main water supplies, the Rao Quan irrigation system, has not been operational in over a month due to a technical malfunction, said the company.
Quang Tri's Trieu Phong and Hai Lang districts have suffered more than other areas due to the droughts.
More than 31,000 hectares of rice fields have gone without a drop of water for several days there.
Most of the wells at Vinh Khe Commune in Vinh Linh District have also gone dry, said commune residents.
On Wednesday, Thua Thien Hue Province's Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said long droughts had weakened and wilted the province's rice crops.
There were some 2,000 hectares of rice in the province affected by the droughts, the department said, noting that farmers in the province depended completely on rain water.
Ho Dang Vang, head of the department, said local farmers had been asked to dig ditches and small ponds to store water to save their crops.
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