In fact, farmers in the Mekong River Delta mainly live on rice cultivation and aquaculture and when the two sectors develop slowly, the economic picture of the whole region worsens. The delta is the country’s largest rice granary and despite an annual increase in rice productivity, farmer revenues remain low and unstable.

According to Nguyen Van Dong, director of Hau Giang provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, if farmers develop three rice crops a year, they will earn VND15 million each hectare on average.

"With this small sum, they cannot afford to buy basic things for their daily lives," Mr Dong explained. On the other hand, agricultural production relies on nature a lot and many households will become poor again if adverse weather destroys a rice crop. This is why a majority of farmers in the Mekong River Delta produce more rice, but their well-being does not match their efforts. Although the average income per capita has been estimated at VND8 million in 2005, up to 21 percent of the households still live under the new poverty line.

It is a paradox that the delta produces the largest volume of commodities, but houses the country’s highest number of poor households and school dropouts among children. It also has the highest proportion of child malnutrition and the highest number of households living in makeshift houses. Experts attributed the delta’s slow development to the poor socio-economic infrastructure, which does not meet the requirements of development and improvements in people’s lives. The quality of human resources, and education and vocational training indexes are also lower than the national average level.

According to the Ministry of Transport, to date, the Mekong River Delta has not yet developed major transport systems linking the delta and Ho Chi Minh City, as well as major seaports and airports to directly export its products. Meanwhile, the transport system in rural areas is badly deteriorated. Talking about personnel training, Dr Bui Chi Buu, director of the Mekong River Delta Rice Research Institute, cited the fact that the number of university graduates and post-graduates makes up only four percent of the young people aged between 20-24. On average, every 3.3 million people in the delta have a university, while the national figure stands at nearly a million. Mr Buu said he is surprised to know that expenditure on education in the delta stands at merely VND130,000/person/year. Due to poor education development, the quality of human resources in the delta is much lower than other regions. Untrained workers now make up 89.28 percent, and most farmers have not experienced any training.

Helping farmers escape poverty

The fact is that farmers find it difficult to diversify production without help from experts. They do not know what kind of crops and cattle to grow to bring about high economic efficiency. With its "agriculture, rural and farmer" policy, An Giang has mobilised resources to fully tap the potential of its land for agricultural development. The province takes the lead in implementing the co-operation model between farmers, scientists, businesses and the State, to fully exploit inputs and outputs. Thanks to these efforts, farmers in Cho Moi district earn between VND60-70 million/ha/year. The Mekong River Delta also boasts other efficient production and trade models such as high-yield rice production at Song Hau Farm, and the co-operatives movement in Tan Hiep A commune of Kien Giang province. These models show that the prospect of becoming well-off from agricultural production in the delta is realistic.

However, to replicate these models, it is imperative to implement four bold measures proposed by Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dzung, who is also head of the Steering Committee for the South-western region, at a recent meeting. These measures are aimed at mobilising resources to quickly develop transport infrastructure, finalising the irrigation system and building safe residential clusters in flood-prone areas, developing education and vocational training, and quickly applying sci-tech advances into production.

It is hoped that by taking these measures consistently, the Mekong River Delta will gradually solve the existing problems, narrow the development gap with other regions and emerge as a key economic region of the country.

Source: VOV news 29/05/2006