Farmers face testing times

Posted in Vietnam Vacations at 3:17 am by sonlavacation

Despite Government initiatives to improve life in the countryside, standards of rural living were still low, said director of the Institute for Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development, Dang Kim Son.

Agriculture is not the direct beneficiary of economic development, Son said. “This is reasonable because economic growth taps industry and foreign investment rather than agriculture.” But while farmers contribute a lot in terms of the country’s exports, they are still not reaping the rewards, he said.

“There is still a big gap between urban and rural people in terms of literacy and school drop-outs.”

Gov’t efforts

Government efforts to ease the plight of farmers have had an effect, insists Tran Thi Que, a farmer in Vinh Thanh Commune in the central Nghe An Province’s Yen Thanh District. “My family earned about VND3 million (US$166) from this year’s spring-summer crop thanks to a recent policy on irrigation fee exemption and good weather,” the mother-of-three said. “But we still had to cover bills like contributing funds to commune’s People’s Committee to help build a kindergarten, roads and healthcare centres.”

These extra costs add up and put a lot of poor farmers off sending their children to school, the mother-of-three said. “Instead of forking out VND1.3 million per year on sending their kids to kindergarten, many parents simply bring their children with them to the paddy field.”

Rather than facing the hardship of a farming life, many young people leave the country to find work in the city, Que said. Others had to leave because of development projects.

Cost of development

Out of the country’s current 4.1 million ha of rice, more than 70,000 ha are swallowed up by development projects every year, according to a report by the Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development Policies.

But with few skills beyond agriculture, many farmers struggle to find another job. In Bac Ninh for example, only about six per cent of farmers have found a job after the province used their land to build industrial zones.

Tran Thi Luong in Hoang Van Thu Commune in northern Ha Tay Province’s Chuong My District said she was left unemployed after the provincial government revoked her family’s two ha of tea plantations to build the Van Son golf course.

“I received compensation to build a new house in resettlement areas two years ago. My family have been living off the money ever since then. I’m really worried about my future,” she said.

Luong was one of hundreds of farmers in the area who were forced to leave their land to make way for the 197ha golf course. Although they are desperate for jobs, employment fairs organised by provincial Department for Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs seek out already-trained labourers.

“I still haven’t been to an employment fair because it’s 50km far from my home and they always enrol trained labourers,” Luong said.

Hanoi is another area looking to re-employ rural labourers, especially those whose land was revoked. Hanoi People’s Committee recently intended to open a job exchange centre for landless farmers in the city’s outlying district, but it is yet to be put into action.

Deputy Director of the city’s Department for Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Do Thi Xuan Phuong said rural workers needed jobs urgently but help was being delayed because of lack of funds.

More problems

Among the many problems facing farmers were high fees, deputy Le Van Cuong from central Thanh Hoa Province said at the third session of the 12th National Assembly last month. Floods and storms in the province were exacerbating the plight of thousands of households who couldn’t afford to pay the fees, he said.

Supply and demand were also an issue. In a recent seminar held in HCM City, former chairman of An Giang Provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Minh Nhi, said. The Government needed to address urgent problems facing farmers, including the supply of agricultural materials such as fertilisers, crop hybrids and pesticides, to boost productivity and quality.

Nhi said a comprehensive plan on agricultural production and restructuring was essential to increase farm product value and ensure a balance in supply and demand to avoid stockpiles during peak harvests.

Institute director Son said the industry needed to take responsibility for producing its own supplies. Presently, as much as 70 per cent of fertiliser and pesticides were exported, while half of agriculture products was supplied for export or taken to urban areas. “Rural areas are being exhausted,” he said.

The country needs to boost investment and create better conditions to lure more businesses to rural areas. Industry, services and urban areas have to take the lead in supporting and promoting agricultural progress.

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Heaven and hard work in the mountains

Posted in Vietnam Vacations at 3:15 am by sonlavacation

Authorities from Mu Cang Chai District, northern Yen Bai Province are working to promote their homeland as a top tourist destination. The reporter takes a trip soak up the mountain air and experience the region’s rich cultural heritage.

You will not for a moment regret a trip to Mu Cang Chai District once you arrive, but getting there is another story.

To reach the 30km-long Khau Pha (Heavenly Horn) Mountain Pass, which rests 2,000km above sea level and is where the beauty really begins, one must first wind wildly around valleys and up mountains full of rocky, hair-raising inclines and breathtakingly narrow passages all covered in obliterating pockets of chilly fog.

Khau Pha Pass, however, marks an end to the alternately nausea – and terror-inducing journey. It offers a break from what often seems the desolate landscape in the northwest of Vietnam and heralds the approach of the district’s La Pan Tan, Che Cu Nha and De Su Phinh villages. Here, the sky turns a brilliant blue in the afternoons, the mountain air is perfectly crisp and clean, and imposing terraced rice fields rise and fall around you.

In the distance, Mong ethnic minority children in colourful dress play along the stream banks, and the wind whistles soft and low through the needles of the green pine forests. Now there is a blanket of pink blossoms, or to day (wild peach trees), announcing the approach of the New Year and the imminent arrival of spring.

You have arrived.

Treasured landscape

Mu Cang Chai is a little town on the bank of the Nam River in Yen Bai Province (which borders Lao Cai, Lai Chau, Son La, Tuyen Quang and Phu Tho provinces).

“The district’s terraced rice fields, which look like giant yellow staircases leading to the sky, have long been a source of pride for the Mong people, here in particular, but also across the country,” said secretary of the Mu Cang Chai Party Committee Sung A Vang, with a broad smile.

The fields are more than a source of pride; they are an intrinsic part of Mong culture. Fashioned from the mountainside, land is selected for development according to the gradient of the slope, water resources and soil.

After choosing a suitable area, the Mong people claim ownership of the land with a metre stick and begin working the soil when spring arrives. This is a very significant moment, and Mong people believe that if an accident occurs while breaking fresh ground, their souls will leave their bodies, and only a medicine man can call them back.

“It’s said that the rice paddies here are the fine results of the locals’ hard work, creativity and shared knowledge,” said Hoang Van Tuc, vice chief of Mu Cang Chai District’s People’s Committee Secretariat. “Husbandry and planting techniques came to the district as crops shifted from growing upland to wet rice. The terraced rice paddy system has contributed considerably to forest protection.”

Waves of brilliant yellow fields cultivated over many centuries now serve as a symbol of the scenic rocky district. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has even declared the greater area a national heritage site.

“Since our rice paddies have been identified as a cultural heritage site, many people have come here,” said Ho A Sua, a local in La Pan Tan Village. “People have said that our home is impressive, especially the natural surroundings, fresh air and the rice fields. They’ve taken many pictures and have given us many gifts, especially candy (that we’ve never tasted before).”

Challenges

Life in Mu Cang Chai District, where the population is 90% Mong, is much like the landscape surrounding it: rocky and difficult. The district’s rugged terrain and remoteness isolate its 13 villages and the township. Even the modest population of 40,000 people is scattered within it.

Compounding the problem of isolation, severe food shortages between crop harvests still occur with frequency. And although farmers toil from dawn to dusk, they lack rice and have no time for entertainment. The period between March and August is when rice shortages are most severe, so the community turns to corn, cassava, sweet potatoes and soybeans to supplement their starch intake.

“We rarely eat meat or fish,” said Ly A Do, a seven-year-old girl in La Pan Tan Village. “We used to have rice with vegetables. Chicken and pigs are raised for sale and only killed during Tet (Lunar New Year) or for other special festivals.”

The erratic food supply is one of the leading problems for heads of the three villages of La Pan Tan, Che Cu Nha and De Su Phinh.

Giang Pang Nu, head of De Su Phinh Village’s People’s Committee, also worries about his village.

“At present, my village has approximately 244 out of 309 households (about 80%) who are very poor. The income of each person is lower than VND200,000 (US$13) per month,” Nu said.

“Authorities from Mu Cang Chai District and Yen Bai Province in collaboration with our three villages are working to secure food and end shortages. I hope we’ll have access to more fertiliser, free high-quality seeds and cultivation areas, so we can increase our crop numbers from one to two and improve our lives.”

Firm trust

Though life is hard for local residents in Mu Cang Chai District, the farmers here are optimists who firmly believe that the Gods and their ancestors will help them.

Theirs is a spiritual way of life, with many communal religious ceremonies like gau tao (New Year), cau mua (rain praying) and com moi (new crop) ceremonies which are celebrated respectively in the first, fourth and tenth months of the lunar calendar, according to Nong Thanh, head of the Relic Management Bureau of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s Heritage Department.

“Farmers hold the ceremonies to give thanks to their ancestors and Gods by offering newly harvested rice, to pray for rain, bumper crops and happiness,” Thanh added.

“Where we live, these are very important annual events which have supernatural, inexplicable power,” said Ly Ble Rua, vice head of Che Cu Nha Village.

“We all believe that the deities and our ancestors can bring us happiness, good health, prosperity and crops if we worship them with respect. Otherwise, disaster is inevitable, storms will come, our harvests will fail and the ploughs will break,” Rua said.

Along with worshipping ancestors and deities, dancing with khen (pan-pipes), singing traditional songs or playing other instruments are also key elements of the Mong’s festival.

A brighter life

The Mong people may believe in the power and support of ancestors and deities, but their lives have certainly been improved a great deal thanks to efforts by the State and local governments.

Yen Bai Province and Mu Cang Chai District authorities say life in the district has been improving since the adoption of State projects 134 and 135, which target hunger eradication, poverty reduction and the establishment of basic infrastructure in the mountainous regions.

These projects are responsible for connecting remote communes with safe roads to provincial centres. This has in turn eased the transportation of goods, seeds and fertiliser. Projects have also helped with irrigation canals, helping the district to expand its crops and the picturesque terraced landscape upon which they reside.

Head of the district Party’s Committee Secretariat, Nguyen Tien Quan, said that although living standards had improved considerably, the district leaders wanted to keep up development speed. He said their key tasks were to increase crop numbers, find plants suitable for growth in the area, bring farmers new technology and boost tourism potential.

Already, Yen Bai Province’s tourism industry yields some encouraging figures. Many tourist projects have already been implemented (including the programme Pilgrimage to the Roots co-organised by the northwestern provinces of Lao Cai, Yen Bai and Phu Tho).

“The number of tourists to Yen Bai Province rose from 18,320 in 2001 to 200,000 in 2007,” said Le Xuan Dinh, deputy chairman of Yen Bai Province’s Department of Culture and Information. “This brought the province’s income from tourism activities up from VND4.98bil ($312,000) in 2001 to VND52bil ($3.25mil) in 2007″.

Dinh confirmed that the province presently has seven national heritage sites and 24 others at the provincial level, so the government is putting great focus on tourism development.

“With Government support, we plan to invest VND2,478bil ($154mil) in provincial tourism development projects between 2006-2015, of which VND11.7bil ($732,000) will be spent to help preserve Mu Cang Chai’s rare animals and forests. It’s amazing because the province’s total investment capital for tourism development projects in 2001 was just VND21.2bil ($1.33mil),” Dinh added.

Looking at the winding terraced rice fields which look like yellow silk ribbons, speaking with the warm local people and inhaling the pink and white blossoms announcing the arrival of spring, such figures should come as no surprise.

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Scientists warn of toxic moonshine

Posted in Vietnam Vacations at 3:13 am by sonlavacation

Scientific researcher Vu Thi Minh Hanh has confirmed that an increasing amount of Vietnam’s home-made booze has become poison.

This is because more home distillers use a popular cheap Chinese yeast instead of their traditional strains, unaware that it’s harmful, says the Health Ministry’s Health Strategy and Policy Institute deputy director.

The scientist, who studied the harm done by home-distilled alcohol, says 90% of home-made alcohol doesn’t meet the State’s hygiene standards.

“Distillers make their alcohol for money,” she says. “Its toxicity is much higher than that made in a proper distillery.”

Her study shows that aldehyde acetic, or vinegar, concentrate in much home-made alcohol is 235mg per litre.

The acceptable standard at the Ha Noi Brewery is 11mg per litre.

The ethyl acetic concentrate in home-made alcohol is 3,650mg per litre and for acetic 1,400mg per litre compared with the distillery’s 45mg per litre and 20mg per litre.

The impact of these chemical substances is detrimental to both physical and mental health, says Vu Thi Minh Hanh.

The victims of home-made alcohol total 10% of the patients admitted to Son La General Hospital’s Casualty Ward each year.

“The figures prove that a lot of home-made alcohol is harmful to the health of its drinkers,” she says.

“Worse the majority of Vietnam’s drinkers, about 96%, prefer home-made alcohol to brand alcohol.”

The scientist investigated three provinces – Son La, in northern Vietnam; Thanh Hoa, in the centre, and Ba Ria-Vung Tau in southern Vietnam.

Popular holiday drink

Unofficial figures show about 90 incidents of poisoning from home-made alcohol throughout Vietnam each year.

Hanoi’s Bach Mai Hospital Anti-poisoning Unit deputy chief Dr Pham Due says the number of poisonings from home-made liquor fell to just three last year.

“But, I’m deeply concerned that most distillers make their alcohol in poor hygienic conditions,” he says.

“The sterilisation, essential to safe alcohol, is not done.”

“We haven’t the equipment to check the comparative toxicity of home-made alcohol.”

HCM City Public Health and Hygiene Institute deputy director Dr Nguyen Xuan Mai warns that although the use of methanol is banned by the Vietnam Government, many dishonest home-distillers use industrial alcohol for their booze.

“Methanol is the main ingredient of industrial alcohol,” he says.
Health Ministry Food Hygiene and Safety Department director Tran Dang says investigations in 20 provinces has proved that 1,500 types of home-made alcohol freely available in the market have no recognised standard of quality.

The State can’t control the brewing or distilling of traditional alcohol in minority regions, he says.

Further, many types of alcohol popular throughout the country are made in unsafe conditions with unexamined herbs and animals, including a variety of reptiles, immersed in it.

Le Mat snake village in Hanoi’s outlying Gia Lam District markets numerous bottles complete with various species of snakes and carrying a variety of names that attract mostly male drinkers.

The Alcohol, Beer and Beverage Research Institute estimates the yearly production of Vietnam’s home-made distillers at 220mil litres.

But Health Ministry Health Strategy and Policy Institute director Vu Thi Minh Hanh puts the yearly total at 250mil litres – two and a half times more than that produced in proper distilleries.

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