Many rice fields in Nghe An have failed because rice germinated in the fields.

On September 1, despite the National Day holiday, in many fields in Yen Thanh, Van Tu, Quan Thanh communes (Nghe An), besides the fields that were not collapsed, machines were still urgently harvesting in the rain. In the collapsed fields, people were busy picking up each germinated rice flower. On the flower, the green sprouts had emerged from the shell, causing the once plump rice grains to now be almost completely spoiled.

Ms. Phan Thi Hoa - a farmer in Tran Phu hamlet, Yen Thanh commune, sadly said: "My family grows 4 sao of summer-autumn rice. I thought this year would be a bumper crop, but when the rice was ripe, there were continuous storms and rains, and the entire rice plant was covered in mud and water. The fields were muddy, and the harvester could not get down. Now the rice has germinated more than 40%, and months of hard work have been wasted. This rice cannot be sold even when dried, so it can only be used as animal feed."

Next to it are 3 fields of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Sam's family with a total area of ​​7 sao, also in a state of collapsed, flooded rice. Although the weather is alternating between rain and sun, the family still has to mobilize manpower to harvest the rice manually, in wet conditions, working while feeling bored, if not harvested, the germination rate will be higher.

Roughly calculated, to cultivate one sao of rice field, farmers invest over 1.2 million VND. During the harvest season,Farmers only need 2 days of sunshine to be able to mobilize harvesters to harvest the entire area. However, due to the heavy rain, the fields are muddy, and the machines cannot go down, so the rice has to be left flooded, leading to germination, with a high risk of total loss.

According to experts, germinated rice in the field almost completely loses its commercial value. If the grain has germinated, the milled rice will be broken, degraded, and cannot be brought to the consumer market.

Mr. Nguyen Van Duong - Chairman of Yen Thanh Commune People's Committee said: This summer-autumn crop, the whole commune planted over 1,400 hectares of rice. The heavy rains that lasted for the past few days have caused 900 hectares of rice in the area to be in the ripening stage, before they could harvest, the rain came down, even though people rushed to the fields, they could not turn the rice in time, the rice fell down, the water seeped deep into the fields, causing the rice to germinate right on the panicle.

Since yesterday morning, the weather has been sunny, the commune has directed the villages to mobilize harvesters, organize the quick harvest of the areas that can still be saved, but in the afternoon, it rained heavily, people could not harvest anymore. Currently, the commune has directed the departments and offices to continue to count the damage, propose to the superiors to have timely support measures so that people can soon stabilize production.

“This is a summer-autumn crop that is considered to be a good harvest. Before storm No. 5 made landfall, the locality estimated the yield to be over 6 tons/ha. But now many rice fields have fallen, the germination rate is high, and the yield will decrease by 40-60%. The worrying thing is that if the weather continues to be unfavorable, the germination rate will be higher, and many areas are at risk of being completely lost,” Mr. Duong worried.

In the flooded fields, looking at the white sprouting rice, people can only sigh in dismay. For farmers, a lost crop means many burdens on their shoulders.

In another development, many areas of summer-autumn rice in Nghe An were harvested but had not yet been dried before they sprouted and were damaged. Taking advantage of the clear, sunny weather, on September 2, farmers in many localities in the province were still busy "stealing" the sun, urgently drying rice to salvage the damaged rice grains.