Winter-Spring Rice Crop 2023 2024 Overcoming challenges to achieve comprehensive victory

Down the Day River from Khanh Trung to Khanh Cong, Khanh Thanh - the key agricultural production area of Yen Khanh district, the immense rice fields in harvest season are as beautiful as a brilliant yellow carpet. In the distance, harvesters with their roaring engines are hurriedly harvesting each field.

Stopping at Phung Cong rice fields, we met Mr. Pham Van Cuong, Khanh Thanh commune, who was checking the maturity of the rice to calculate the harvest date. Mr. Cuong shared: This crop, his family planted more than 1 acre of rice, mainly Nep and Dai Thom 8 varieties. Thanks to good care, compliance with the crop calendar and timely pest control with the guidance of the cooperative staff, it can be said that this year's rice crop was good. The current rice price is also quite high, ranging from 7,500-8,000 VND/kg of fresh rice, about 2,000 VND/kg higher than the same period last crop.

According to Mr. Cuong, thanks to participating in the "3 reductions, 3 increases" model, which means reducing the amount of seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers, the production costs for this crop have also decreased a lot. With high prices and a good harvest, 1 hectare earns a profit of about 40 million VND.

Talking to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dai Thanh Agricultural Service Cooperative (Khanh Thanh Commune), Mr. Tran Van Thuy said: Although the weather at the beginning of the season was unfavorable, with cold rain and prolonged gloom, pests and diseases broke out on a large scale, however, thanks to the drastic direction in the prevention and control work, the cooperative's rice still grew and developed well, with a yield of over 2 quintals/sao. In particular, this winter-spring crop, the cooperative coordinated with the provincial Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection (PPD) to implement the model "3 reductions, 3 increases" on an area of 5 hectares, not only helping farmers reduce costs but also improving their awareness of pests and diseases and using pesticides appropriately, reducing environmental pollution, reducing chemical residues in agricultural products, contributing to protecting the environment and public health.

Currently, more than 200 hectares of winter-spring rice of the Cooperative are ready for harvest, with nearly 10 combine harvesters, it is expected that the harvest will be completed in just about 5 days. The Cooperative has also prepared machinery, materials, and fertilizers, ensuring full service of 9 stages for farmers in the upcoming crop season.

Also in this winter-spring crop, some localities have applied technological advances to the fields. High production efficiency is like a "medicine" to support farmers to boldly expand their models towards modern, organic agriculture.

At Khanh Hoa Agricultural Service Cooperative (Khanh Hoa commune), this crop has organized a partnership with farmers and businesses to deploy a model of spraying pesticides using drones. Mr. Ngo Xuan Truong, Director of the Cooperative, said: "The Cooperative has brought in machinery to plow the land, harvest, and now spray pesticides. In fact, this year's winter-spring rice crop has a significantly higher density of pests and diseases than in previous years, especially pests such as planthoppers and small leaf rollers, but the fields sprayed with drones are all free of pests and diseases, the flag leaf set is well protected, the rice panicles are even, plump, and the yield is guaranteed. Thereby, farmers are more enthusiastic about accepting new technology." In the 2023-2024 winter-spring crop, the whole province will plant 39,549.4 hectares of rice (reaching 101.4% of the plan).

As of June 5, localities have harvested more than 21,000 hectares (54% of the area). Some districts have basically finished harvesting such as Nho Quan and Yen Mo.

According to the general assessment of localities, although this is a very difficult production season, with the close and synchronous direction of authorities at all levels and the agricultural sector, and the efforts of farmers, we still achieved a comprehensive victory, not only maintaining productivity, but also increasing quality and rice prices.

Comrade Nguyen Ngoc Tuan, Deputy Head of the Provincial Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection, said: In the winter-spring crop this year, at the beginning of the production season, the weather and climate conditions had complicated developments. From January to March, there were 8 cold air waves and the cold air intensified, affecting the growth, development and care of late spring rice. The growth of rice in the crop was 5-7 days slower than the 2022-2023 winter-spring crop. Entering March, the cloudy weather, drizzle, and high humidity created favorable conditions for pests and diseases to arise and develop, especially leaf blast disease, which caused local damage to susceptible rice varieties such as: TBR 225, LT2, Bac Thom No. 7, Dai Thom 8, BC 15, Nep...

The alternating sunny and rainy weather in April and May continues to cause leaf rollers and various types of planthoppers to arise and cause severe damage. The total area infected with leaf rollers this crop is up to over 33 thousand hectares (1.9 times higher than the same period last year), of which the heavily infected area is over 26 thousand hectares (twice as high as the 2022-2023 Winter-Spring crop). For planthoppers, the density of the first, second and third generations of planthoppers is higher than that of the 2022-2023 Winter-Spring crop.

However, thanks to good planning and forecasting; timely advising the Provincial People's Committee to issue documents on focusing on caring for and preventing harmful organisms to protect production to mobilize the participation, drastic and close direction of localities, close coordination of relevant units to guide farmers to implement good prevention measures, the situation of pests and diseases has been basically controlled. More than 39 thousand hectares of rice in the province still grow and develop well, the average yield increased compared to last year's Winter-Spring crop, reaching 66.81 quintals/ha.

Not only a good harvest and high prices, this rice crop also recorded many innovations in production methods. Notably, many farmers and cooperatives have boldly invested in purchasing advanced, high-tech machinery for production, such as: transplanters, pesticide sprayers. The total area applying tray seeding and mechanical transplanting reached over 2,000 hectares, the area of specialty rice production, high quality in the organic direction, applying new varieties, new technical advances is over 1,350 hectares.

In many localities, linkage chains between cooperatives and companies and enterprises in supplying input materials, purchasing output products, and creating rice value chains continue to be formed. In addition, in this crop, the provincial Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection also implemented training to guide farmers to expand the application of Integrated Pest Management (IPM/IPHM) and System of Rice Improvement (SRI) models, thereby helping to reduce input costs such as seeds and fertilizers, bringing high efficiency and productivity, reducing emissions, and protecting the environment.

Currently, in the face of complicated weather developments, the Department of Agriculture is focusing on guiding and urging localities to mobilize maximum machinery and human resources to quickly harvest the Winter-Spring rice with the motto "green at home is better than ripe in the fields", where the harvest is done, the land is prepared for the next Summer-Autumn crop. The success of the Winter-Spring crop is a solid premise and motivation for the new crop.

Article and photos: Nguyen Luu

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