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 rice fields 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, and all the rice had fallen down. We had to harvest each flower by hand. Some had sprouted, some had rotted from the water, but we tried to salvage whatever we could to 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 have hired combine harvesters to harvest the less heavily damaged fields. However, Mr. Nguyen Minh Chien, owner of a combine 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 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 area was ripe but was broken and flooded, 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 drainage systems, 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, machines cannot access, can proactively harvest manually to minimize damage.