HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, June 11 (NNN-VNA) – Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, including 12 southern provinces and Can Tho city, are increasingly switching to smart rice farming, to improve yields, cut costs and protect the environment, local media reported today (Tuesday).
They use fewer seeds, pesticides and fertilisers, compared to traditional farming methods, without losing out on yield or quality, while utilising advanced technologies, like smart rice seeding and transplanting machines and other smart devices.
In Dong Thap and Tra Vinh provinces, farmers used smart rice farming to good effect. Their use of urea has declined by around 40 percent and the cost of labour for fertilising their fields has fallen by 75 percent.
Fertiliser deep placement has helped reduce greenhouse gases by 40 percent, when used with alternate wetting and drying irrigation.
Smart farming reduces the amount of water required for irrigation by 30 percent and the labour cost and seed requirement by 50 percent.
It also reduces saltwater intrusion into rice fields, as farmers can actively regulate freshwater through smart devices that monitor the quality of water.
The profit from this model is 20 percent higher than from traditional methods, according to farmers.
The delta, Vietnam’s rice granary, has nearly 1.7 million hectares of rice fields, with 300,000-400,000 hectares affected by saltwater intrusion through rivers in the dry season.
Vietnam exported nearly 2.8 million tonnes of rice worth roughly 1.2 billion U.S. dollars, in the first five months of this year, posting respective year-on-year decreases of 5.3 percent and 20 percent, according to its General Statistics Office.– NNN-VNA
