Nghe An farmers harvest by hand in the rain, salvage damaged rice after storm No. 5

According to the reporter, on the morning of August 27, in Quan Thanh commune, many areas of rice were lying flat and soaked in water. Farmers went out to the fields in the rain, using sickles to harvest by hand.

In the field of Hamlet 1, Mrs. Tran Thi Nhi said that all 4 sao of her family's rice had fallen down. "The harvester could not enter because the field was flooded and muddy, the rice had all fallen down. We had to harvest each flower by hand. Some had sprouted, some had rotted in the water, we tried to salvage whatever we could, and then grind it to feed the chickens...", Mrs. Nhi shared. Not only was the harvest difficult, the rice after harvest had to be threshed by hand and dried with a fan because there was no threshing machine.

Meanwhile, some households hired combine harvesters to harvest the less heavily fallen rice fields. However, Mr. Nguyen Minh Chien, owner of a harvester, said: "It is very difficult to harvest fallen rice by machine, the rotating wheel sometimes pulls up mud and soil, mixing the rice with the soil."

Mr. Cao Xuan Toan - Vice Chairman of Quan Thanh Commune People's Committee said that out of the 1,042 hectares of summer-autumn rice in the commune, about 950 hectares were broken and deeply flooded after storm No. 5. Most of the rice was ripe but was broken and submerged in water, so the harvester could not access it. In this situation, the local government has advised people to take advantage of the weather and proactively harvest by hand to salvage the harvest and minimize damage.

In addition, the commune is directing hamlets to clear the drainage system, encouraging people to replant rice and mobilizing labor to harvest manually in heavily affected areas.

In low-lying communes such as Hop Minh, Yen Thanh, Dong Thanh, Quang Chau..., many rice fields are still submerged in flood water, so people cannot harvest and are waiting for the water to recede.

Ms. Vo Thi Nhung - Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment said: Nghe An has more than 75,292 hectares of summer-autumn rice, affected by storm No. 5, currently the whole province is flooded, 30,564 hectares are damaged. The Department of Agriculture directs localities to take advantage of favorable weather to quickly harvest ripe rice areas, for broken rice fields, and for broken rice fields that cannot be accessed by machinery, they can proactively harvest manually to minimize damage.