The model of shrimp-rice in Mỹ Xuyên district of Sóc Trăng has developed since 1990 and been evaluated as a smart and sustainable practice which is adaptive to climate change.
According to Đào Đắc Hùng, Vice Chairman of Mỹ Xuyên People’s Committee, in the last five years, this model has proved its effectiveness when shrimps have been granted ASC and VietGAP certificates and rice ST25 has met the organic standard given by the US and EU and been recognized as the most delicious rice in the world in 2019. The statistics show that the model produced 30,000 tons of shrimps in 2015 and 39,000 tons in 2019. In the 2020 shrimp crop alone, the scheduled stocking area was 18,800 ha with 6,800 ha of black tiger shrimp farm producing 9,000 tons and 12,000 ha of white leg shrimp farm producing 31,400 tons. However, the prolonged summer heat has slowed down the seeding. Only 9,700 ha of shrimp-rice farm has been stocked, making up 51.56% of the plan.
Huỳnh Ngọc Nhã, Deputy Director of Sóc Trăng department of Agriculture and Rural development said that shrimp plays an important role and decides the growth speed of the provincial economy every year. Thus, Mỹ Xuyên must decisively implement the project “Good rice – organic shrimp” for sustainability assurance as well as increase farmers’ income and enhance the value of shrimp and rice produced from this model. Besides, in the face of an increasingly harsh climate, uncontrollable disease outbreak and unstable consuming markets, farmers should change their production methods in accordance with natural conditions and science and technology development if they want to achieve success.
VFM
