The aspirations of the people of Bich Hao

(Baonghean)There are few places like Bich Hao in Thanh Chuong district, where "the land dries up before the sun even shines and floods before the rain even falls." Farmers only manage to cultivate one spring crop a year, leaving the rest of the year to the elements. This prolonged agricultural inactivity forces young people to leave their hometowns in search of other jobs...

By chance, I met a friend on this side of the Thanh Thuy border gate. About 20 years ago, we parted ways after he returned to his hometown after being discharged from the army. He was only in his early 40s, but he looked older than his age. After a few minutes of reunion, he said: “My hometown is in Thanh Tung commune, the center of Bich Hao area, Thanh Chuong district. Although there’s a lot of rice land here, the fields are left fallow for months at a time, leaving farmers unemployed, forcing young people like us to go far away to work.” It turned out that my friend had left his hometown to work as a construction worker in Laos. Knowing I was a journalist, before boarding the bus to continue my journey home, he didn’t forget to invite me to visit Bich Hao area, hoping it might provide some material for my writing.

In early July, I visited the Bich Hao area. Just as my friend said, my first impression was that while other localities were busy tending to their summer-autumn rice crops, this area was the opposite; everywhere I went, I saw abandoned fields. Fields spanning tens of hectares were now used only for grazing cattle. Only occasionally could I see a small area of ​​summer-autumn rice in the higher, more rugged terrain.

Upon investigation, we learned that this area has for generations suffered from the hardship of "one harvest for the whole year." During the rainy season, the fields of Bich Hao depend on the water level of the Lam River. Wherever the Lam River rises, the area is flooded accordingly, sometimes remaining submerged for up to 15 days. Therefore, there are times when, under scorching sun, the entire field suddenly floods, due to heavy rain upstream causing the Lam River to rise. This has led the farmers of Bich Hao, for generations, to avoid planting summer-autumn rice crops, instead "gambling" with the weather.



Hoi Kho channeled water from the Lam River into the Bich Hao area.

Passing through Tung Tan hamlet, Thanh Tung commune, we saw several farmers diligently tending to rows of cucumbers, the plants barely a handspan tall. Beside the cucumber rows were patches of rice in the tillering stage. Stopping our car and chatting with some of the farmers, they confided, "We're just doing this to keep ourselves busy, because this field rarely yields a summer-autumn rice harvest."

And the story between me and Mrs. Nguyen Thi Sen, from Tung Tan hamlet, illustrates the diligence, hard work, and resilience of the farmers in this challenging region: She and her husband have three children who are of school age. To earn money to support their children and make ends meet, her husband, outside of his farming free time, works as a construction laborer for a local construction team, earning 100,000 dong a day. Meanwhile, she and her children raise livestock, a laborious mix of good and bad years, due to recurring diseases and unstable prices.

The family owns 4 sao (approximately 0.4 hectares) of rice paddies. In good spring harvests, they can collect nearly 1.5 tons of rice, enough to last them the whole year. Some years, however, they suffer from crop failures, yielding less than a ton of rice, forcing them to worry about food during the lean season. Last summer-autumn, Mrs. Sen boldly requested additional land from other households in the village, cultivating 1 acre of rice. The total cost amounted to over a million dong, yet in the end, they couldn't harvest a single grain because of frequent flooding.

Undeterred, this summer-autumn season, Mrs. Sen continued to plant 9 sao (approximately 0.9 hectares) of rice and tried growing 2 sao (approximately 0.2 hectares) of cucumbers on land previously used for two rice crops. During the heavy rains of Typhoon No. 2, the fields were flooded for four days. The rice crop was unaffected, but one-third of the cucumber plants died. After the water receded, the whole family went to the cucumber fields to fertilize and loosen the soil around the roots, hoping for a delayed flood so they could salvage some fruit. If the weather is favorable this summer-autumn season, her family will have a little more rice; otherwise, they will be left with nothing. Mrs. Sen confided, "If I don't plant rice, what else can I do? Sitting around is a waste of time. In this low-lying area, there's no fertile land, no other source of income, so how can I feed my children and send them to school? If only the government could find a way to prevent floodwaters from the Lam River from entering the Bich Hao area, the farmers here would have a much better life."

Thanh Xuan commune, traversed by the Ho Chi Minh Highway and situated at the highest elevation in the Bich Hao region, still faces challenges when discussing summer-autumn rice production. Nguyen Khanh Thanh, Chairman of the Commune People's Committee, laments: Like other communes in the Bich Hao region, the majority of the commune's double-cropping rice land remains fallow for seven months of the year, resulting in some of the poorest residents in Thanh Chuong district.

The entire commune has 110 hectares of land for two rice crops per year, but only one spring crop can be planted each year. For the rest of the year, the local authorities haven't figured out what crops would be more profitable to grow. Previously, the local authorities encouraged farmers to cultivate short-day rice varieties during the summer-autumn season, but there has never been a successful harvest due to frequent flooding, with each flood lasting at least four days, and sometimes up to 15 days. There have been years when the commune encouraged farmers to let the rice sprout, but each plot only yielded 20-30 kg of rice, of poor quality, and they had to abandon it. Only about 10 hectares in higher, more elevated fields are used for summer-autumn cultivation. In years with less flooding, it's manageable, but if there's heavy flooding, it's a complete crop failure.

For seven long months of the year, farmers in Thanh Xuan have to find every way to get work. Those nearing retirement age stay home, planting beans, peanuts, cassava, and raising pigs, chickens, buffaloes, and cows on the hillsides... while healthy young people flock to the South and North to work as laborers. They work but lack skills, so their income is low and unstable. It's difficult to count how many people in the commune work as laborers elsewhere. At this time, finding a healthy young person in the villages is very difficult. Similar to Thanh Xuan commune, Thanh Tung commune has 342 hectares of double-cropping rice land, but only 60 hectares were planted this summer-autumn season; Thanh Lam commune has 320 hectares of double-cropping rice land, but only 40 hectares were planted this summer-autumn season... all the areas where farmers plant summer-autumn rice are in high-lying, hilly areas.

Elderly farmer Tran Xuan Suu, from Xuan Hoa hamlet, Thanh Xuan commune, laments: "My family has six mouths to feed, and the commune allocated us five sao (approximately 0.5 hectares) of rice fields. Because we can only plant the spring crop each year, we invest heavily in carefully tending the rice, yielding nearly 2 tons of rice each season. If we only ate, we'd have enough food for the year, but because we depend on the rice for everything else, we've often lacked rice. At nearly 70 years old, living on this land, I've never harvested a summer-autumn rice crop. Therefore, if the spring crop fails, we have to sell livestock to buy rice to survive."

Mr. Suu sighed: "Farmers in other areas, if they lose this crop, they can always have another. But for farmers like us here, if we lose the spring crop, what can we rely on? Every year, entire fields are left fallow for a long time. It's such a waste. And even if we worked, we wouldn't get anything to eat, so no one is foolish enough to pour their time and money into it. We farmers hope there's some solution to prevent flooding in this area, so that today and our children and grandchildren in the future won't have to suffer so much."

The Bich Hao area of ​​Thanh Chuong district comprises seven communes: Thanh Giang, Thanh Lam, Thanh Tung, Thanh Mai, Thanh Xuan, Thanh Ha, and a part of Thanh Long commune. This area has a very complex topography, fragmented by high mountain ranges originating from the Truong Son mountain range on the Vietnam-Laos border, running in a northwest-southeast direction, gradually decreasing in elevation towards the Lam River, forming a plain along the Lam River, but also dissected by small streams. Due to this topography, the agricultural land here is steep, averaging 6-7 degrees, easily eroded and washed away, making intensive farming and drought and flood control difficult.

On the other hand, the region's conditions are uneven, with high-altitude areas often experiencing droughts and low-lying areas frequently affected by floods. Annually, the Bich Hao area typically suffers from drought from May to early August and flooding from late August to early November. Furthermore, the inadequate irrigation system in this region is a major reason for the difficulties in planning summer-autumn and winter crop production. Therefore, the lives of the people in this area are generally the most difficult compared to other areas in the district.

The harshness that nature has inflicted on the Bich Hao region is not a recent phenomenon, but a difficult problem that has puzzled generations of local officials and agricultural sector officials. Like the simple wish of the farmers in Bich Hao for many years – to be able to cultivate two rice crops a year – we share the same hope: if only a practical irrigation project could be implemented in Bich Hao, then one day the farmers of this poor rural area would have the opportunity to own their land, and the young people of Bich Hao, like my friend from the past, would no longer have to worry about being far from home...

Xuan Hoang