"Thirsty" fields along the Ngan Truoi River

Located on both sides of the Ngan Truoi canal through the area, the fields in Hoa Lac commune (Duc Tho, Ha Tinh ) still lack irrigation water.

Yen Thang village field, Hoa Lac commune.

Yen Thang village (Hoa Lac commune) was previously merged from 3 hamlets. The rice fields, therefore, are located in different areas. All of these areas do not have a guaranteed water source for production.

According to local people, even in the spring, the water source for the fields is passive because it only depends on rain and the tides of the La River for irrigation.

Even in the spring, the water supply to the pumps in Hoa Lac commune is unstable (In the photo: Current status of the water level at a pumping station in Hoa Lac commune after a rain ).

Faced with this reality, for many years now, the people of Yen Thang village have stopped growing summer-autumn rice and have switched to growing beans. This year, bean consumption is difficult, so people have had to leave the entire production area fallow.

Yen Thang village chief Pham Dinh Hieu said: The whole village has nearly 100 households engaged in agricultural production with 26 hectares. Although the spring crop is more favorable than the summer-autumn crop, the water source is unstable. If there is no rain, many times it is very passive. In the summer-autumn crop, people do not like to grow beans because the output is difficult and unstable. Instead, they want to grow rice but there is no irrigation water so they have to give up.

Ngan Truoi Canal through Hoa Lac commune.

Mr. Hieu said: “The thing worth mentioning is that the village has fields located next to the Ngan Truoi canal but there is no way to get water! This year, the entire summer-autumn area will have to be left as it is, waiting for the spring crop.”

Not only Yen Thang village but almost the entire agricultural production area of Hoa Lac commune in 13 villages, this season has become a grazing ground for cattle.

Many rice fields near Ngan Truoi canal could not be put into summer-autumn production.

According to observations, Ngan Truoi canal flows through Hoa Lac commune, passing through a number of fields belonging to two agricultural cooperatives responsible for regulating production, Duc Hoa Cooperative and Duc Lac Cooperative.

Although the two cooperatives are very concerned about the people's wishes, there is no way to get water to serve the fields.

Ngan Truoi Canal flows through many production areas of Hoa Lac commune.

Vice Chairman of Hoa Lac Commune People's Committee Le Tien Thang said: The whole commune has about 508 hectares of agricultural land, but this summer-autumn crop only produced 3 hectares spontaneously, because people took advantage of water from some small ponds and lakes. Based on the reality of water resources difficulties, the commune did not put the entire agricultural land area into summer-autumn rice production.

Vice Chairman of Hoa Lac Commune People's Committee Le Tien Thang (far left) talks with Ha Tinh Newspaper reporter.

The Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Hoa Lac Commune also said: Ngan Truoi Canal flows through the area, passing through some fields in Yen Thang and Thuong Tien villages... but there is no open gate design. The locality really wants to take advantage of the water source from this canal to proactively produce, even in the spring crop, but the only way left is to invest in a canal leading from Duc Dong commune to the area with a length of about 3-5km.

The people have repeatedly petitioned and proposed, but the commune does not have enough resources because the investment cost for this canal is very large. Hopefully, the authorities will pay attention and soon study a plan to help the locality have a canal to take water from the Ngan Truoi canal system, thereby effectively using the entire rice growing area.

Ngan Truoi Canal flows through Hoa Lac commune, but the government and people have no way to use this water source for production.

According to research, currently, the internal canal system of Hoa Lac commune is basically guaranteed. In case there is a canal, this locality only needs to reinforce and repair a small amount of internal canal to provide enough water for production.

As someone who is knowledgeable about agricultural production in the area, Mr. Le Tien Thang calculated: If the authorities invest in canals, in the summer-autumn crop alone, Hoa Lac commune will restructure about 70% of the rice area in the total area of more than 500 hectares.

Trung Dan - Duc Phu

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