Feature: Vietnamese farmers delight as China brings end to drought-linked despair

"We have been desperately longing for water to be released from China and Laos' dams, and now it's here. Hurrah!" exclaimed a joyful middle-aged farmer in Vietnam's southern An Giang province on Tuesday, his leathery hand pointing towards a canal full of water running near his vast paddy field.

"We have been praying for rain, but it hasn't rained since the beginning of this year, making us miserable. Now water released from China and Laos' dams is arriving here to replenish the Mekong River here and it is already reviving our paddy fields," Ho Hue, the 50-year-old farmer, told Xinhua on Tuesday.

Stepping down from his mud-covered tractor, Hue took off his cap, fanning himself with it, and while blossoming into a warm smile said that he and his fellows in the town are actively working the soil to prepare for sowing rice seeds, mainly the IR 50404 variety, for the summer-autumn crop.

"Due to the prolonged drought and saltwater encroachment, the last rice crops failed and our cattle also suffered due to the scarcity of freshwater. We hope that the current summer-autumn crop will compensate for the damage,"the farmer said hopefully, before jumping back on his tractor to continue working the soil.

His hope is echoed by many other farmers in An Giang as well as in other provinces in Vietnam's Mekong Delta.

"An Giang is the first Mekong Delta province to have received water from the Mekong River's upper reaches after emergency water was released from China and Laos' dams as reported on TV. So, farmers here are actively working the soil, and even sowing rice seeds, which keeps businesses going," Trinh Van Phu, director of Trinh Van Phu One-member Limited Company based in An Giang's Tri Ton district, told Xinhua.

Due to the drought and saltwater encroachment, many farmers abandoned their paddy fields, but with the latest influx of water from China and Lao, they are now back to work again, Phu said, noting his firm specializes in trading rice varieties, fertilizers, husking and polishing rice.

Unlike An Giang, the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap has suffered from a less severe drought, but the water released from China's dam has also been greatly received by local residents.

"Water levels here have increased in the last few days due to tides and water released from China and Laos'dams. We were not as seriously affected by the drought as An Giang, Vinh Long and Ben Tre, but the water arriving is very timely, since it hasn't rained for a long time," a 53-year-old local farmer, Le Thi Hanh, from Dong Thap's Hong Ngu district said.

Meanwhile, farmers in Ben Tre province are longing for more water from the upstream Mekong River to enable them to sow rice seeds or breed oysters to export.

"This year, saltwater encroachment is extremely serious. Our oyster farms were completely destroyed within three or four days. My elder brother bred many more oysters than I did, so he suffered losses of billions of Vietnamese dong (tens of thousands of U.S. dollars)," Nguyen Thi Thi, a 45-year-old woman from Ben Tre's Binh Dai district, said.

On Tuesday, the Water Resource Directorate under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development held a press conference on the ongoing drought and saltwater encroachment in the Mekong Delta.

At the press conference, Tran Duc Cuong, deputy office manager at the Vietnam National Mekong River Committee, said: "Water from the Mekong River from China has arrived in Vietnam, helping to solve the drought and saline intrusion in the Mekong Delta."

The prolonged drought and saltwater encroachment in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam's rice hub, have caused freshwater shortages for 1 million local people and caused some 700,000 tons of rice to be lost.

At the press conference, Nguyen Van Tinh, deputy general director of the Water Resource Directorate, said: "The new freshwater should be prioritized for domestic use, for cattle, for perennial fruit trees ... Regarding the sowing of rice seeds for the summer-autumn season, even the coming autumn-winter crops, local people should follow our advice."

Local farmers who live far from the sea are advised to sow rice seeds now, but their peers near the sea are being discouraged from doing so because the water there is still too salty; they should wait for rain instead, authorities have advised.

In the long run, localities and regions often stricken by droughts and saltwater encroachments should adjust their socio-economic development plans, especially planning of land use, irrigation, agricultural production and water supply, they added.

In his paddy field in An Giang on Tuesday afternoon, Ho Hue was still as busy as a bee, working the soil to prepare for sowing rice seeds. Endit