Hydroponic vegetables growing in greenhouses is an orientation in agricultural development
Challenge
From the beginning of 2019 until now, extreme weather phenomena have caused agriculture to suffer a lot of damage.
In the 2018-2019 winter-spring crop, the whole province had 61 ha of rice lost due to lack of irrigation water; 512 ha of peanuts were in drought, with production lost estimated at 30-70%. In the summer-autumn crop of this year, 2,870 hectares in coastal areas, hills, lower ends of the irrigation canal systems lacked irrigating water sources. In these areas, farmers had to switch to new crops or simply left land fallow.
Mr. Phan Thanh Hung, Head of Water Resources Department explained, the water shortage is due to the impact of Elnino, caused by an early appearance of hot weather on a large scale and less rainfall (about 15-30%). Compared to the previous year, the temperature in the first months of this year was nearly 3 degrees higher and the rainfall was only 52-85%.
The water levels in irrigation reservoirs are all lower than the same period in 2018. Many reservoirs have low levels of less than 60% of effective capacity. Of which, 4 reservoirs have high evaporation, increasing the possibility water shortage for the summer-autumn crops, such as Phu Bai 2, Khe Ngang, Tho Son, and Hoa My reservoirs.
Conversion
One of the orientations for the agricultural sector is to develop agriculture towards adapting to climate change, natural disasters, epidemics, etc., and to improve quality and added value, protect the environment.
Mr. Ho Vang, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said, the agricultural sector is gradually shifting to be more suitable to the market, climate change, etc. One of the bright spots is the successful implementation of the restructuring agriculture project. In particular, restructuring crops and livestock towards adaptability and sustainable development is an important orientation.
Thanks to the application of science and technology, the introduction of new varieties into production, etc., in 5 years (2013-2018) the province has converted 15,500 ha of low-quality rice to high-quality rice, accounting for 28.7% of the total rice field area. The province has formed a commercial rice production area with a large field model of 4,160 ha (100 ha in 2013). In addition, the province has connected and contracted with enterprises in production and product consumption of 1,760 ha.
VietGAP standard application models continue to expand with 2,100 hectares of rice, 88 hectares of vegetables, and 290 hectares of organic rice. There are 26 models of greenhouse and net houses with an area of nearly 28,000 m2 for vegetables and flowers production.
In 3 years (2016-2018), the whole province has converted about 1,500 ha of ineffective rice land in mountainous and coastal areas and areas without water to corn, peanut, vegetable, flower crops, and aquaculture. It is expected that in the next two years (2019-2020), 1,100 hectares of inactively irrigated land will be converted to upland crops.
Application of the model 3 decreases, 3 increases in Huong Tra
Restructuring in animal husbandry is promoted with the application of scientific and technological advances, gradually shifting from small-scale production to medium and large-scale production of high-quality commodities. Many livestock and poultry husbandry units apply industrial and bio-safety production procedures.
Currently, the whole province has 69 livestock farms with annual revenue of over VND 1 billion, of which 15 farms have cooperated with partners.
Mastering science and technology
Parallel to changing the structure of crops and animals, technical solutions, advanced science, and technology are also applied to increase adaptability.
An example is a study conducted by Prof. Dr. Tran Dang Hoa and his colleagues of the Department of Agronomy, Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry on solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in rice-producing regions by an alternating dry-watering method. With the application of an alternating dry-watering method, the amount of CH4 gas and irrigation water can be reduced in the same area but does not affect the quality and yield of commercial rice.
According to Prof. Dr. Tran Dang Hoa, the research results show that, when applying dry-watering alternating method, CH4 emission was reduced by 26% compared to regular flooding method, and the profit from the application of this irrigation method was about 6.3 million VND / ha, higher than continuous flooding.
| In 2018, the gross regional domestic product (GRDP) of the province increased by 6.61%, of which, the agricultural sector increased by 3.46% (the planned increase for 2018 was 2.23%); the value of agriculture, forestry, fishery products and agricultural services accounted for 11.6% of the province's total economic structure. |
The research on development and transfer of new varieties of high-yield and high-quality crops, which can adapt to farming conditions (salinity tolerance, drought and alum tolerance) and to cultivation methods (flooding, drought) and can be suitable to commodity production, is also key.
According to Mr. Ho Vang, in the long term, the agricultural sector will adjust the structure of crops and livestock in the direction of diversification, combining intensive farming to increase productivity and output with environmental resource protection and risk control. The agricultural sector will also deploy advanced cultivation models and modern farming techniques such as high-tech agriculture, good agricultural practice (VietGAP), integrated crop management (ICM), cultivation techniques "3 decreases, 3 increases" (decrease the amount of seed sown, decrease the amount of pesticides, decrease the amount of nitrogen fertilizer; increase the rice yield; increase the quality of rice; increase economic efficiency); etc., in association with building local key products.
In animal production, priority is given to large farms which ensure bio-security, disease safety, husbandry production in the direction of VietGAP, usage of organic, biological litters... The focus is on improving the quality and output of animal live weight, building geographical indications of livestock commodity products to promote production, to improve the value of products and to increase the income of farmers.
Story, photos: Hoang Loan