Gia Vien speeds up rice harvest outside the dike to avoid minor floods

The winter-spring crop season has benefited from favorable weather conditions, resulting in significantly higher yields for rice grown outside the Hoang Long dike in Gia Vien district compared to previous seasons. Following the principle of "Better to harvest while the rice is still green than wait until it's overripe," communes with ripe rice are accelerating the harvesting process, as the annual flood season is expected to arrive in about five days.

Comrade Dinh Anh Tuan, Head of the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of Gia Vien district, said: This season, the entire Gia Vien district planted 5,941 hectares of winter-spring rice, with the area of rice outside the Hoang Long dike being about 640 hectares, accounting for nearly 11%. In most localities with rice fields outside the dike, many low-lying areas are planted by farmers using medicinal seedlings.

It is known that this is the main crop (one crop) of the year in Gia Vien district, bringing high income to farmers, so the entire district directed planting within the best time frame. Therefore, this winter-spring crop, especially the early spring rice area outside the Hoang Long dike, the District People's Committee directed communes and agricultural cooperatives to take advantage of the weather, plant within the best time frame, and fertilize early, so the rice is growing and developing quite well. Many communes and cooperatives organized their members to plant rice in rows, so that when the rice ripens simultaneously, it can be harvested quickly and efficiently by harvesting machines, limiting damage from rats at the end of the season.

Paddy — On the flat land, farmers bring in threshing machines to harvest rice in the fields.

Starting on May 10th, farmers in the area began harvesting the early winter-spring rice crop outside the dike. A prime example is Gia Hung commune, which has 193 hectares of early winter-spring rice planted outside the dike, accounting for 56% of the total cultivated area in the commune. To date, two cooperatives in Gia Hung commune, Do Luong Cooperative and Hoa Tien Cooperative, have harvested approximately 40% of the rice outside the dike. Preliminary estimates indicate an average yield of 230 kg/sao (approximately 230 kg per sao), an increase of nearly 30 kg/sao compared to the previous season. Gia Hung commune anticipates harvesting the rice within the dike area around May 25th.

On the ripe rice fields, a lively atmosphere of harvesting rice outside the dike began very early. Today, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Reo's family in Dong Tien village, Gia Tien commune, mobilized extra manpower to harvest the ripe rice. Mrs. Reo happily said: "All the manpower was urged to go to the fields very early to harvest quickly, because in the next few days, the early summer flood could arrive at any time. This morning, my family of 5 focused on quickly harvesting 2 sao (approximately 0.2 hectares) of ripe rice."

Like Mrs. Reo's family, at this time, farmers with rice fields outside the Hoang Long dike have ripened rice, and their top priority is to dedicate all their time and manpower to harvesting quickly and efficiently. In discussions with leaders of several localities: Gia Thinh, Gia Lac, Gia Trung, Gia Tien, we learned that in these areas, the rice fields outside the dike are only cultivated during the early spring season.

Before 9 a.m., many farmers had already brought their rice home to dry. In the higher, drier fields with firm soil, most families hired harvesting machines. In the lower, waterlogged areas, families mobilized labor exchange and increased manpower to quickly harvest the ripe rice.

Because the rice paddies are low-lying and the rice plants have fallen over, it's impossible to bring harvesting machines in. Therefore, some families in Hoang Long village, Gia Trung commune, hire extra laborers to manually harvest the ripe rice. Stopping his sickle, a farmer happily explained: "This is the rice field outside the dike. Therefore, when the rice ripens, we have to harvest it immediately. This alluvial land is in the middle of the Hoang Long River, so we need a large workforce to harvest not only to 'avoid the sun' but also to 'avoid the flood'. In the morning, we harvest the rice stalks, neatly stacking them and drying them until noon. In the afternoon, we increase the workforce and harvest the entire area. Only then do we pull all the harvested rice ashore, hire a threshing machine right at the foot of the dike, and bring the rice home…"

According to assessments by the District Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and comments from some farmers, this winter-spring crop, the rice grown outside the dike in Gia Viễn district generally yielded good results, comparable to the previous season. This is partly due to increased manual planting in many localities, favorable weather conditions, abundant fertile alluvial deposits, and fewer pests and diseases.

To protect the planted rice fields, the management boards of cooperatives have intensified propaganda and mobilized the entire population to participate in rat extermination, and have vigorously urged early rat eradication at the beginning of each production season. Many cooperative management boards have established rat extermination teams. These teams sign commitments with the cooperative management board to ensure that the planted rice fields of cooperative members are not damaged by pests and diseases.

The golden ripe rice, yielding high productivity, has motivated farmers to mobilize manpower and machinery to harvest the rice outside the dike quickly and efficiently. By May 13th, Gia Vien district had harvested approximately 30% of the rice area outside the dike, with an estimated yield of 64.5 quintals/hectare.

Currently, the communes of Gia Hung, Gia Phu, Gia Thinh, and Gia Trung have harvested 30-50% of the ripe rice fields outside the dike. It is expected that by May 20th, the entire district will have finished harvesting all the rice fields outside the dike.

Article and photos: Minh Duong

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