Flood avoidance production experience of Nghe An farmers

The low-lying terrain, considered the "flood center" of Thanh Chuong, during the rainy and stormy season, Thanh Xuan commune is often flooded, significantly affecting the agricultural production of the people. Therefore, in the past, the summer-autumn crop in Thanh Xuan seemed to be unworked, the fields were left fallow. However, in the past 4 years, in the situation of having to "live with the flood", therefore, unable to leave the fields fallow due to unfavorable weather, Thanh Xuan people have gradually found ways to adapt, producing "avoiding the flood".

Mr. Bui Van Dai - Chairman of Thanh Xuan Commune Farmers' Association said: "With the motto of producing summer-autumn crops as early as possible, the commune's crop schedule is also 15-20 days earlier than the district's general schedule. Specifically, from mid-May, summer-autumn crops are planted and harvested before September. As for beans, sesame, and squash, they are planted earlier, after the spring harvest, the land is prepared, the summer crop is planted, and the land is not allowed to rest, and we have to compete with time to harvest before the rainy season."

With many years of experience in summer-autumn production, Mr. Nguyen Dinh To, Phu Lap hamlet (Thanh Xuan commune) said that normally, floods will occur from mid-September onwards, therefore, in summer-autumn rice production, people must choose short-term rice varieties such as Khang Dan SL 9, DT 80... which are resistant to adverse weather, strong plants, less likely to fall over and can be harvested early.

At the same time, we must be very careful about the time of sowing because the beginning of the season is dry and the end of the season is flooded, so we must ensure a safe frame for the rice plants to avoid drought and heavy rains. Mr. To said: "Sow the seedlings in early May, after harvesting the spring rice, prepare the land for planting. As for squash, we need to grow the seeds in the pot first and then plant them in the field to shorten the growing time and avoid flooding during the harvest period."

Also a locality that is often flooded during the rainy season, the people of Thuong Tan Loc commune (Nam Dan) also have a lot of experience in flood-avoiding production. Taking advantage of the favorable weather, Mr. Phan Trong Tiep has just finished harvesting green beans and red beans and is preparing the land to plant short-term vegetables.

Mr. Tiep said: “In recent years, agricultural officials have guided farmers to reorganize production, which is to grow watermelon, melon, beans, sesame for early harvest, then plant short-term vegetables to harvest before the rainy season. After the flood, the amount of alluvium will be deposited, making it easier to grow high-quality vegetables to serve the year-end market. Growing short-term vegetables for quick harvest is a solution to restore production and quickly have capital to reinvest in the post-flood season that our people are applying.”

Previously, the grapefruit garden of Mr. Phan Ba ​​Hau's family (Lien Duc hamlet, Thanh Lien commune) was flooded and withered, leading to crop failure. In recent years, thanks to the local authorities' propaganda on natural disaster prevention and control during the rainy and stormy season and early notification of the hydroelectric plant's flood discharge, Mr. Hau has been proactive in farming to bring economic benefits to his family.

Mr. Hau said: “Previously, because I did not pay attention to participating in communication sessions on storm and flood prevention, as well as information about the time and response, orders when hydroelectric plants release flood water... so when the season comes, the grapefruit garden is flooded.

Through training and propaganda sessions from the authorities and functional units, along with my own experience, I switched from growing Dien grapefruit to green-skin grapefruit, this grapefruit variety yields an earlier harvest; at the same time, I forced the grapefruit to flower 1 month earlier to harvest and avoid floods. Currently, 70% of the 250 grapefruit trees have ripened, so I harvested and trimmed them early to avoid storms, fruit drop, flooding, damage, and crop loss.

In order to adapt to climate change, in addition to flood-avoiding production models based on experience, localities have also implemented models to "live with floods" such as converting rice fields to growing biomass corn; models of restoring land filled by floods to grow green beans; converting flooded and low-lying areas to grow apple snails, lotus and fish, etc.

It can be seen that the dissemination of experience in natural disaster prevention and production organization to adapt to flooding for people in the downstream area is extremely necessary. Thanks to that, people living in the downstream area can proactively respond, not affecting production, minimizing damage caused by storms and floods.