Sixty specialists from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam met recently to discuss how best to manage pest infestation and viruses that have affected rice crops in Vietnam.
During the one-day workshop, Vietnam's deputy minister for Agriculture,and Rural Development (MARD), Dr Bui Ba Bong, said brown planthoppers infested the winter-spring crop of 2005-2006 in the Mekong Delta, leaving plants stunted, twisted and with no grains.
During last year's summer-autumn crop, some 400 hectares of rice fields in the Mekong provinces of Long An and Dong Thap were affected.Bong said the disease lowered the Mekong Delta's rice production by some 700,000 tonnes in 2006.
On November 4 in 2006, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung chaired a conference on the situation in HCM City, with MARD following with a massive effort to prevent the spread of the epidemic until the 2006-2007 winter-spring crop.
"This effort, together with co-operation from overseas and local scientists, helped us control the epidemic and increase rice production in the Mekong Delta by 700,000 tonnes in 2007," said Bong. He said these achievements helped to ensure the country's food security and raise the country's rice exports to 4.5mil tonnes last year.
In response to Vietnam's request, in May 2006 the Australian Agency for International Agricultural Research funded a project that would help farmers overcome this crippling problem in a sustainable manner.
According to Dr K. L. Heong, and IRRI pest management specialist, similar infestations and viruses occured in 1980s but subsided partly because of farmers' reduced use of pesticides. "The recent increase in rice prices might have caused farmers to increase the amount of fertiliser and pesticide, triggering the outbreaks," he said.
Bong urged international scientists to help Vietnam to develop a research plan and strategy that would not rely on pesticides and would be sustainable."We need to ensure that Vietnam will continue to enjoy high rice productivity with no damage to the environment," he said.
Vietnam Bridge