Irrigation towards multi-sector service

In addition to regulating water and ensuring dam safety, the Irrigation sector will focus on the task of providing production water for crops and aquaculture in the coming time.

Irrigation will aim to further improve production efficiency for the crop and aquaculture sectors.

According to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Hoang Van Thang, despite many achievements, irrigation still has many limitations in the development process, especially in exploitation management. In response to the requirements of economic development innovation of the country, the issues arising in agricultural restructuring require the irrigation sector to have changes and synchronous solutions from policy mechanisms to science and technology solutions (S&T) to serve the fields to bring high economic efficiency.

Limitations in irrigation exploitation

At the conference on Application of science and technology to serve the project of restructuring the irrigation sector and improving the efficiency of management and exploitation of irrigation works organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on August 15, in Hanoi, Deputy Minister Hoang Van Thang said: Irrigation models applying science and technology have been integrated into many projects. However, to avoid failure in applying models as before, localities need to establish steering committees to build models and widely apply the models.

Deputy Minister Hoang Van Thang emphasized that irrigation in the coming period will need to focus on areas that bring high economic efficiency, such as applying advanced irrigation methods for upland crops, irrigation for aquaculture, applying advanced technologies, and raising people's awareness in natural disaster prevention.

Currently, advanced irrigation technology, saving water for some key crops with advantages, such as coffee, pepper, dragon fruit, sugarcane... has brought about clear efficiency not only in productivity and output but also in saving water, reducing the amount of fertilizer for crops.

However, according to Ms. Le Thi Kim Cuc, Director of the Department of Science, Technology and International Cooperation (General Department of Irrigation), the application of advanced irrigation technology, saving water in agriculture in our country is still limited, up to now only about 28,400 hectares, of which drip irrigation is over 21,200 hectares. Therefore, in the process of establishing irrigation planning projects for areas with key dry crops, with large-scale production, it is necessary to plan models for some key areas combining advanced irrigation technology, saving water with other agricultural measures, such as varieties, care, plant protection, production organization... to organize replication, serving the restructuring of the industry.

Irrigation calculates the plan to buy water from hydropower

Mr. Nguyen Van Tinh, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Irrigation, said that irrigation is aiming to serve many sectors and fields. Especially irrigation for upland crops, irrigation for aquaculture, irrigation for advanced farming methods, and irrigation for disaster prevention and mitigation.

According to Mr. Tinh, the Irrigation Department is currently studying a plan to buy water from a number of small hydroelectric plants in the northern mountainous region to irrigate sloping lands and dry crops.

This plan is calculated to not affect electricity production for daily life and to fully utilize the water resources of these hydroelectric plants for dry crops.

The source of funds to pay for purchasing water from hydropower plants will also be accumulated from the public-private partnership method. This method is implemented according to the principle of having a certain amount of State capital as a “bait”, based on clear economic efficiency to attract people and businesses to participate in the program.

The combination of irrigation for upland crops will have a pilot model and a State policy mechanism. If the problem of irrigation for upland crops combined with fertilization is solved, it will reduce production costs for farmers and increase crop productivity.

At the conference, the leaders of the General Department of Irrigation also said that they will focus on directing the construction of an irrigation system to both save water and protect the environment, ensuring safe and disease-free aquatic products.

The General Department has built a system of synchronous solutions to implement the project, but the biggest difficulty is capital. With such capital, the General Department still has to have a plan to arrange and invest in the most effective way. Specifically, capital will be arranged in the form of: Encouraging public-private investment; decentralizing and delegating authority to localities to take the initiative in arranging capital for projects but still focusing on irrigation for subjects with high economic efficiency, such as irrigation for dry crops and aquaculture.

According to Chinhphu.vn