Kien Giang (VNS/VNA) - Theincome per capita of rural residents in Kien Giang province, the country’slargest rice producer, has reached 46.2 million VND (1,990 USD) a year, up 1.5times against 2015, mostly due to the use of new farming models andagricultural restructuring.

The figure is higher than the MekongDelta’s income per capita in rural areas (36.7 million VND) and the country’sincome per capita in rural areas (35.8 million VND), according to the provincialDepartment of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Under the national programme on new-stylerural areas, the province has seen good results in recent years.

Do Minh Nhut, deputy director of thedepartment, said the province had strongly encouraged farmers to use new seedvarieties and advanced techniques as well as farming models that adapt toclimate change.

More farmers are also applying Vietnameseand global good agricultural practices (VietGAP and GlobalGAP) standards.

Many large-scale rice fields in theprovince plant high-yield and quality rice varieties for export, whileenvironmentally friendly concentrated shrimp areas use intensive farmingmethods.

Hoang Trung Kien, director of theprovince’s Agriculture Extension Centre, said that the number of large-scalerice fields this year increased by 44 percent against last year. The 213large-scale fields cover 75,000ha, of which 71,000ha have been guaranteedoutlets for their products.

Farmers have also turned many inefficientrice fields to rice-shrimp fields that grow shrimp in the dry season and ricein the rainy season.

These rice-shrimp fields expanded from77,866ha in 2015 to 83,458ha last year, the largest area in the delta. Anadditional 20,000ha of rice-shrimp fields will be implemented after 2020,according to the department.

Aquaculture in coastal areas has developedrapidly with many farmed aquatic species such as black tiger shrimp,white-legged shrimp, river giant prawns, bivalve mollusks, and brackish water andfreshwater fish.

Nhut said that irrigation systems hadcontrolled flooding and saltwater intrusion, and had met the demand forbreeding shrimp under industrial and semi-industrial farming models.

The province expects to harvest 256,000tonnes of farmed aquatic species this year, including 78,000 tonnes of shrimp,according to the department. Rice and shrimp are the province’s two keyproducts.

Effective models

The province has encouraged farmers to usesemi-intensive and intensive shrimp farming, breed marine fish in floatingcages, rotate shrimp and rice on the same field, and grow organic pepper.

Many farmers in Kien Luong district’s Hoa Diencommune are rotating the breeding of shrimp and crab and rice cultivation onthe same field, earning high incomes.

Under this model, farmers plant rice inSeptember, harvest rice in December, and then pump water into the rice field tobreed shrimp and crabs.

Nguyen Phuoc Du, who was the first farmerto use the model on his 6ha rice field in Hoa Dien, has earned a profit of 250-300million VND (10,800-12,900 USD) a year.

“Shrimp breeding under this model does notneed much medicine or chemicals, which cuts production costs,” he said.

Having disease-free shrimp and crab fry forbreeding is also very important, according to Du.

The commune has a cooperative with 15members who are using a rice-crab rotation model on a total area of 50ha.

Giang Van Thom, Chairman of the Hoa DienCommune Farmers Association, said the association would work with the commune'sPeople’s Committee to establish more cooperatives to improve incomes.

Phu Van Khen, a farmer in Phu Quoc district’sBai Thom commune earns a profit of 400 million VND (17,200 USD) a year from hismixed-farming model in which he grows forestry trees and fruit trees.

Besides breeding deer and wild boar, andraising fish in three ponds, he offers food and room services for tourists. Healso employs 10 workers who are paid 5-6 million VND (215-260 USD) a month.

In the last two years, Khen donated2,000sq.m of land and more than 100 million VND (4,300 USD) to build a ruralroad and support poor locals.

The new-style rural area programme in theprovince has received support and contributions from local residents andcompanies to build infrastructure like roads and irrigation works.

Mai An Nhin, Vice Chairman of the provincialPeople’s Committee, said: “The new-style rural area programme … has improvedproduction efficiency, labour value of rural residents, and farmers' incomes.”

The province expects to mobilise about 29.2trillion VND (1.26 billion USD) from various sources, including central andlocal budgets and donations from locals and companies, for the new-style ruralarea programme in the 2010-2020 period.

The province has more than 728,400ha ofrice fields that produce about 4.2 million tonnes of paddy each year./.