Annual report 1995-1996

Advanced farming in Vietnam

The advanced farmer couple of Mr. Duong Trung Buu and Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong take an early afternoon break to discuss their remaining work for the day.

Their 0.35-hectare farm in Thanh Binh District of Dong Thap Province on the fringe of the Plain of Reeds features a rice - fish operation. After transplanting the first rice crop, they stock the field/pond with four silver carp and six tilapia per square meter of surface area, around 400 fish in all.

"We feed the fish rice bran and broken rice mixed with thinly shredded floating weeds," says Ms. Hong. "They can also feed on the algae that cling to the floating weeds. It takes them 10 months to reach harvest size." After harvesting the current rice crop, they will plant a second early rainy season crop and then harvest it with the fish when the fish price is higher.

"We use a stiff-strawed rice variety in the fish pond so that the crop will not lodge," says Ms. Hong. "That's one thing we don't want to feed to the fish."

Ms. Hong and her husband work together on numerous tasks: planting, rogueing, weeding, and harvesting. "The one job I truly dislike, however, is the careful counting of the tillers and the number of grains per panicle," she says. "We must get exact yield measurements for every variety and line we are testing." It is one of the additional tasks of being in the advanced farmer program.

Turning rice seeds into money

The 1-hectare site of advanced farmers Mr. Vo Ngoc Triem and Ms. Huynh Thi Thuan has the look of a well-kept experiment station rather than that of a typical Vietnamese farm. The look is reinforced even more so on this "field day" in late February as Mr. Triem joins scores of visiting farmers-some from distant districts and provinces-and UC rice researchers to evaluate and select the best lines the farm couple are testing and demonstrating this cycle.

A member of the Advanced Farmer Program only since 1993, Mr. Triem has quickly gained a reputation as an energetic young man who is very businesslike, and at the same time quite scientifically minded.

For example, on the business side, Mr. Triem sells new seed at double the price of ordinary rice while the advanced farmers normally charge only 1.3 times. "However," he assures, "everyone who buys our product will get pure, quality seed. There are no mixtures."

On the scientific side, he multiplies the seed by using just one seedling per hill, so that he and Ms. Thuan can more easily remove the off-types.

Most of the 59 lines being evaluated this day (34 of which are IRRI-developed) have the necessary yield potential and disease and insect resistances.

"Vietnamese rice must have top grain quality for export, so we select primarily for this trait," Mr. Triem says matter-of-factly. He and his visitors select five lines. "I will multiply these lines," he says, "and make them available to my customers as soon as possible."

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