Tropical storm Nari, to hit Vietnam & Cambodia

Tropical storm Nari, which made landfall in the Philippines on October 12 and is approaching Vietnam, is forecast to bring torrential rain to 13 of Cambodia’s 24 cities and provinces from October 16-18.
The Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology has issued a warning to fishermen and cruise ships of possible rising water levels in the Mekong River.
Over the past four weeks, floods have taken the lives of 122 people and affected 1.5 million others across the country.
It damaged 250,000 hectares of rice fields and more than 400 kilometres of roads in 20 cities and provinces nationwide.
As many as 22,000 families have evacuated to higher land.-VNA

Seductive terraced fields in Lao Cai - Travel

Sapa-Lao Cai
The rice harvesting season has come to terraced fields in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai, creating fascinating pictures.

Playing football in terraced fields

Terraced fields – nature’s gift to northwestern region

Sa Pa, a natural mosaic

Source: Dan Tri

Source: Dan Tri

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Mekong Delta in despair as rodents ravage rice paddies

LookAtVietnam - Farmers in the Mekong Delta have not eaten and slept well in these days due to the return of rats and mice, which have decimated large numbers of rice crops.

Over 1,500 hectares of fall-winter crops in Tra Vinh Province were destroyed by an infestation of mice.

Farmer Son Danh, in Tra Vinh’s Chau Thanh District, visited his one hectare rice paddy at dawn to collect dead mice. These vermin have gnawed 30 percent of the farmer’s blossoming field.

Fearing that the rice field would be ruined, Son Danh bought two kilograms of Biorat, a mouse and rat poison to scatter around the field.

Over the first few days, some 60 to 70 per cent of rats were killed; however, the rodents have still ravaged much of the field.

Tran Van Cong, chairman of Farmer Association in My Chanh Ward, Chau Thanh District, said, “Rats have ravaged and destroyed 40 percent of 360 hectares of rice paddies in the village of Giong Trom in My Chanh Ward, including four hectares that were completelydestroyed.”

Chau Thanh district’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development estimated around 550 hectares were infested by field mice, with five to 30 percent of crops destroyed and 564 hectares in Cau Ngang District with ten to 30 percent of crops destroyed.

While farmers fretted about the skyrocketing numbers of rats and mice, agricultural officials have done little to reverse the situation.

Farmer Nguyen Van Tien in Cau Ngang said farmers were happy to see a team of inspectors ten days ago, yet there has been no feedback to farmers’ proposals of rodenticides.

Nguyen Manh Thai, head of Chau Thanh District’s Plant Protection, warned farmers to irrigate water into fields in a bid to demolish mouseholes and put rodenticide at the entrances and bushes.

The danger of gnawing rats in the fields of Tra Vinh happened 15 years ago, damaging thousands of hectares of rice paddies. The province launched a campaign to buy the animal’s tail and offered money tofarmers who killed many mice. The campaign proved effective.

Many are now asking whether officials should try the method one again in order to stem the flow of rodents and protect rice crops.

VietNamNet/SGGP

Drought in India, Typhoons in Philippines/damaged crops

CEBU, Philippines (AP) - A drought in India and typhoons in the Philippines have damaged large tracts of rice paddies, threatening to upset the fragile food market amid fears of shortages and riots, experts said Wednesday.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap of the Philippines, the world's biggest rice importer, told an international rice conference the impact of the next "perfect storm" will be greatest on vulnerable countries like his, and the world's poor.

He proposed an international food reserve that will safeguard against wild fluctuations in food prices. When prices are down, producers can build stocks to halt further decreases, while consumers can turn to the reserves when prices are rocketing, Yap said.

"We are not very far off from possibly another rerun of 2008," he said. Last year's record-high price of rice and other staples led to riots in at least 30 countries, according to the World Food Program.

The biggest rice producers, Thailand and Vietnam, had curbed exports to protect domestic supply. In the Philippines, people formed long lines to buy low-quality rice at subsidized prices while traders were suspected of hoarding.

Rice is a staple for half of the world's population, a big chunk of them poor, Yap said.

India and Philippines are the two main drivers of the market, and rice traders are waiting to see if and how much they will import.

"I can tell you any panic reaction by any of the countries can easily flare up this market which is already in a very tight situation," said Samarendu Mohanty, a senior economist at the Philippine-based International Rice Research Institute. The institute has been trying to breed high-yielding rice varieties that can survive extreme weather.

The Philippines — which imports rice every year to cover a 10-percent domestic production shortfall — says it has lost at least 925,000 tons (840,000 metric tons) due to recent back-to-back storms.

Officials earlier said there will unlikely be need for more imports this year, but on Wednesday Yap refused to rule it out, saying the government will do "what we have to do to protect our people's food security."

While there is no official estimate yet of losses due to low rainfall in India, a drought of similar magnitude in 2002 lowered rice production in that country by 23.5 million tons (21 million metric tons), Mohanty said.

"So it is very likely the crop yield will be 20 million less than what we had last year," he added.

Golf Courses Now Grow in Vietnam’s Rice Fields - NYTimes.com

PHAN THIET, Vietnam — It may be the most capitalist enterprise in Communist Vietnam — by the rich and for the rich: a proliferation of golf courses that is displacing thousands of farmers and devouring the rice fields the country depends on.
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Justin Mott for The New York Times

The Sea Links Golf and Country Club, which is built on sand dunes, pipes in water from a source nearly two miles away. More Photos »
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In Vietnam, a Backlash Against Golf CoursesSlide Show
In Vietnam, a Backlash Against Golf Courses
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Justin Mott for The New York Times

Groundskeepers at the Ocean Dunes Golf Club, 125 miles northeast of Ho Chi Minh City. More Photos >
The New York Times

The Dai Lai golf course drove thousands off their farmland. More Photos >

Until last year, according to experts who have done the calculations, licenses for new courses were being issued at an average of one a week, for a total of more than 140 projects around the country.

Promoters created the idea of a “Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail,” a series of eight courses whose label is as good a sign as any of where Vietnam seems to be headed — its heroic wartime past redefined as a sales pitch.

If all those projects were completed, the number of courses would approach that of golf-mad South Korea, where there are close to 200. It would still fall well short of China, which has more than 300, and would be nowhere near the number in the United States, which has about 16,000 courses, or even Florida, with 1,260.

For a country that had only two courses at the end of the war in 1975 and that according to some estimates has only 5,000 golfers today, however, the increase in projects over the past four years has been explosive.

But a backlash emerged within the news media and among academics and government officials over the social and environmental costs.

In summer 2008, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung ordered a halt to new construction pending a review, and last June the government ordered the cancellation of 50 of the projects. But most of the others are well under way, to add to the country’s 13 established golf courses.

“Developers and foreign investors are saying they want to make the country a tourist destination, and to do that you need to offer more amenities like golf,” said Kurt Greve, the American general manager of the Ocean Dunes Golf Club and the Dalat Palace Golf Club. Most of those tourists would come from elsewhere in Asia, especially South Korea and Japan, where golf courses are hugely overcrowded.

“They’re all wanting to grow golf,” he said, referring to the developers and investors, “but the government is saying, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute!’”

In its drive to industrialize, Vietnam has already lost large amounts of farmland to factories and other developments. According to the Agriculture Ministry, land devoted to rice, the national staple and a leading source of export revenue, shrank to 10.1 million acres from 11.1 million acres, just from 2000 to 2006.

Many of the new projects seem to have to do more with capitalism than with sport. Taxes on golf courses are lower than those on other forms of development, and many of the projects appear to be disguised real estate ventures.

Only 65 percent of the land involved in the current projects has been set aside for golf courses, Ton Gia Huyen, an official with the Vietnam Land Science Association, said at a conference on golf courses in May. The rest of the land is reserved for hotels, resorts, villas, eco-tourism areas, parks and recreational projects.

One solution is to change the tax structure, said Nguyen Dang Vang, vice chairman of the National Assembly’s Committee for Science, Technology and Environment.

“Golf courses are for rich people, account for vast areas of land, cause pollution and affect food security, so taxes should be appropriately high,” he told the newspaper Tuoi Tre in July.

And when rich people play, it appears that farmers and villagers pay the price.

Development of a single course can cost the land of hundreds of farms, displacing as many as 3,000 people, sometimes devouring an entire commune, Nguyen Duc Truyen, an official of the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Sociology, said at the recent conference. Only a small number of them find jobs on the new golf courses.

For example, the Dai Lai golf course in Vinh Phuc Province drove thousands of people from their land but provided jobs for only 30 local residents, according to a report in July on the Vietnam News Service. Farmers are typically compensated at a rate of $2 to $3 a square meter, the news service said, about the cost of a sack of rice.

Along with land, golf courses also put a strain on water resources, said Le Anh Tuan from the Can Tho University Environmental Technology Center. In a widely quoted estimate, he said an 18-hole course could consume 177,000 cubic feet of water a day, enough for 20,000 households.

“The dry season is critical,” said Kiet Tuan Le, the chief groundskeeper here at Ocean Dunes, 125 miles northeast of Ho Chi Minh City. “I’ve got to continually ask the water department, almost fight them, because there’s not enough water for the city people.”

Mr. Greve said that the resort was working to minimize its environmental impact, with a new strain of grass that was more salt-tolerant and would require less fresh water.

The nearby Sea Links Golf and Country Club, which is built on sand dunes, pipes in water from a source nearly two miles away, said one of the resort’s directors, Tran Quang Trung. Automatic sprinklers switch on every 15 minutes and individual hoses provide a continuing drip at the base of each tree.

The sumptuous, rolling 18-hole course is only one part of the ambitious, 420-acre development, he said.

Rows of villas, 315 of them, stand behind the course like soldiers on parade, with many sold before they were built. A five-star hotel overlooking the course has almost been completed.

Just beyond the development area, the red earth is already being turned for the construction of six ocean-view apartment buildings with 550 units.

In the future, Mr. Trung said, it will all be known as “Sea Links City.”

Vietnam to protect its rice fields

Vietnam has announced plans to protect around four million hectares of rice fields, to ensure long-term national food security.

According to state media, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai instructed the Agriculture Ministry to prepare a Rice Cultivation Land Management decree.

Vietnam's economic boom has seen rice land in the Mekong and Red River deltas shrink, from about 4.5 million to 4.1 million hectares between 2000 and 2006.

Aside from the building of new factories, rice paddies are also being reduced by more than 120 golf courses that are either in operation or being planned.

Tags: vietnam

Vietnam plans to protect rice farms: state media

pFast-industrialising Vietnam plans to protect at least 3.9 million hectares (9.6 million acres) of rice fields to ensure long-term national food security, state media reported on Friday.

The move comes amid the global food price surge that has seen grain prices skyrocket and aims to preserve a core growing area of the national staple food from mushrooming industrial parks, urban areas and golf courses.

Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai has instructed the Agriculture Ministry to prepare a Rice Cultivation Land Management decree and submit it for approval in the third quarter, the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.

Amid Vietnam's economic boom, rice land -- mainly in the Mekong delta around Ho Chi Minh City and the Red River delta around Hanoi -- has shrunk from about 4.5 million to 4.1 million hectares between 2000 and 2006, says the ministry.

Aside from the building of new factories, rice paddy is also being gobbled up by 123 golf courses that are either in operation or being planned, and which require large amounts of water and pesticides, state media has reported.

Development has seen thousands of rice farmers lose their ancestral lands, driving a steady series of demonstrations outside government offices by farmers who typically complain they received insufficient compensation.

In a protest last month, hundreds of angry farmers in central Nghe An province set up roadblocks to stop the building of an industrial park, claiming they were short-changed by developers, the Thanh Nien daily reported.

Rice prices have shot up this year, helping to drive inflation in Vietnam to 25 percent year-on-year in May, which has triggered about 300 labour strikes in the first quarter and sparked bouts of panic-buying and rice hoarding.

The communist government has sought to assure Vietnam's 86 million people that the country, the world's number two rice exporter, has sufficient stocks and has also threatened to punish speculators who are driving up prices.

Following what farm groups describe as a bumper crop, Vietnam plans to lift a temporary halt on new rice export contracts by July as planned, and aims to reach an export target of 3.5 million to 4.0 million tonnes this year.

The Agriculture Ministry also plans to set up a national rice reserve of 100,000 tonnes to help stabilise distribution and meet domestic demand when market prices fluctuate, the state-run Vietnam News Agency reported.

The latest plans -- which follow a proposal to gradually scale down annual rice exports to 3.8 million tonnes by 2020 -- aim to ensure that Vietnam keeps sufficient rice lands to feed an expanding population in the future.

"There are too many industrial parks, projects, golf courses, and so on," economist Le Dang Doanh, a veteran government advisor, recently told AFP. "The problem is now how to ensure food security as demographic pressures, the increase of the population, are still increasing."

World grain prices have risen sharply this year, a trend blamed on higher energy and fertiliser costs, greater global demand, droughts, the loss of farmland to biofuel plantations, industry and cities, and price speculation.

Thai rice prices fall as Vietnam crop climbs

photo by Chuck Kuhn

HANOI/BANGKOK — World benchmark Thai rice prices fell back from near a record high on Wednesday while Vietnam reported a six per cent increase in its main rice crop, further easing fears over supplies of Asia's staple food.
News of a bumper winter-spring harvest and of a big jump in plantings for the summer-autumn crop in Vietnam, typically the world's second-largest exporter behind Thailand, also added to expectations that Hanoi will end a months-long export ban on schedule from July, soothing anxious importers.
On Monday, Cambodia became the first exporter to lift trading curbs, with Prime Minister Hun Sen saying he was confident that after two months of restrictions the country had enough rice for its own needs.
The perception of a looming increase in supplies helped drive Thailand's benchmark 100 per cent B grade white rice down more than 10 per cent to $900-$930 (U.S.) per tonne on Wednesday, off the near record high $1,030-$1,050 a tonne last week, traders said.
Exports bans earlier this year by Cambodia as well as bigger sellers like Vietnam and India had triggered a wave of panic buying by importers who depend on the narrow spot rice market for their supplies, driving prices up nearly threefold since January.
But those buyers now appear more confident.
“Demand is slow as most buyers are waiting to buy at cheaper prices when Vietnam resumes its exports,” one Thai merchant said.
A 141,000 tonne tender from the Philippines, the world's biggest importer, attracted private sector bids of only 500 tonnes on Tuesday, suggesting the record highs of the last two months are over.
However, no major slide is expected was key buyers such as Iran, Iraq, Malaysia and Nigeria are expected to move in and replenish stocks at cheaper levels, traders said.
In its monthly report on Vietnam's southern region for May, the General Statistics Office (GSO) said farmers had so far harvested 11.5 million tonnes of export-quality winter-spring paddy, up 5.8 per cent from last year.
The Agriculture Ministry estimated last month that output from the winter-spring crop would rise just 3.9 per cent.
Hanoi banned the signing of new deals from March to June to ensure sufficient domestic supplies and control double-digit inflation, but Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat said last week Vietnam may lift the ban in early July.
Vietnam could set a floor price of at least $800 a tonne when it resumes signing new export contracts, a state-run newspaper reported on Tuesday.
After finishing the winter-spring crop, farmers in the Mekong Delta planted 1.12 million hectares for a summer-autumn crop – 17.7 per cent more than last year – the GSO said, in a bid to cash in on the soaring prices.
Many growers of vegetables, sugarcane and other crops have also switched to rice, officials say.
The Mekong Delta grows three rice crops a year. The highest yielding winter-spring crop is mainly used for exports.
On Wednesday the winter-spring paddy was 6,000-6,200 dong (37.3-38.6 U.S. cents) per kilogram in An Giang, one of the delta's largest rice growing provinces, unchanged from last week, but double its level of a year ago.
In Vietnam, the rise in rice prices has ignited inflation, which accelerated to 25.2 per cent in May from 21.4 per cent in April, its seventh consecutive double-digit reading and one of the highest in Asia.