Low floods leave Mekong Delta farmers high and dry
Last updated: 10/31/2010 18:00
A woman makes a fishing net in the Mekong Delta's Dong Thap Province. She has sold little as the flooding of the Mekong River has been very low this year and there's little fish to catch.
Hopes of earning income from making boats and fishing nets during the annual flooding season have been dashed for many people in the Mekong Delta.
The flooding this year has been too weak to allow boats to go fishing.
This is the lowest flooding season in several decades, said residents of Long An, Tien Giang and Dong Thap Provinces.
“In previous years, from the eighth lunar month, people from Long An, Vinh Long and An Giang would rush to buy fishing nets and I wouldn’t have a little time off. Now it’s the middle of the flooding season (late ninth lunar month) but there are days I have not sold a single one,” said Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy of Dong Thap.
“The water in the field is even not higher than the top of weeds, how can there be a lot of fish?” Thuy was cited as saying by local news websiteVietNamNet.
“I heard that some people have stopped the Mekong River in the upstream.”
Flooding in the Mekong Delta is not as disastrous as in the central region. The delta needs the flooding to replenish its soil. Waters rise on the Tien River, a major tributary of the Mekong River in Vietnam, between the seventh and eleventh lunar months.
Many poor farmer families, especially those in Dong Thap who live along 120 kilometers of the river, have learnt to adapt to the flooding and make good money from it.
This year, the flooding was enough to stop them from planting anything but not enough to let them go fishing.
Dong Thap’s irrigation officials said that the flooding was the lowest in 85 years. The highest water level upstream the Tien River was measured at 3.05 meters, more than a meter lower than last year.
At another Dong Thap village famous for making lo and lop, bamboo tools that look like a basket to catch fish, very few families have work this year.
Nguyen Thi Tam, a local, said “There's been no flooding, so we’re making thelo and lop only to look at them, no buyers.”
Another local, Duong Hoai Han, said he used to sell five to six thousand loearlier but has sold just 2000 this year.
“People here live on paddy fields. When the flood comes, they make fishing nets, lo or buy boats to go fishing. This year, it hasn’t come, so many people didn’t know what to do to make a living,” said Duong Van Hen, a 60-year-old resident of Dong Thap.
“I’m old so it’s not a big deal. But young guys would feel bored and go drinking. So much harm done,” Hen said.
He said he cast his net wide the whole day long, but did not catch enough fish to make a dish for his family.
People in the area have a saying: “as cheap as linh fish.” But many markets in An Giang are charging VND180,000 ($9.23) for a kilo of the small shiny fish. A large number for the fish came from Cambodia lakes every flood season in previous years, making it an An Giang specialty.
Nguyen Minh Huong, 70, from An Giang Province, said he has spent most of his life catching linh fish. He used to catch several hundreds of kilos of linh a day in previous years and earn half a million dong at prices as cheap as VND2,500 a kilo.
Huong said many young men in the area went to Cambodia but they found no fish there either, so they went to Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong to work at construction sites.
An Giang catfish farmers said they used to feed other fish with linh fish but now they couldn’t even afford linh fish for people. The farmers have turned to buying sea fish for their catfish but the sellers know the situation and have raised their prices as well, said a local named Tu.
At the boat-making village in Lai Vung District which supplies boats for the whole of the Mekong Delta, people tell the same sad story.
Duong Van Nhan, who owns a big workshop in the province, said he has let all his workers off as no one was buying boats.
“Early this year, I spent a lot of money buying wood to make the boat, now I have to bury it under the river so they don't rot.”
He used to sell 600-700 boats in previous years but has only sold around 100 so far this year.
Another resident Tran Van Hong just opened his own workshop this year but “there’s no job to do and I even owe the money spent on buying wood.”
Hong used to be hired to make boats for others for around VND100,000 ($5) a day, and he planned to make his own business to earn more.
Nearly half of the 110 boat-making workshops in the village have been closed and the workers have left the province for other jobs.
Le Van Hung, a Dong Thap irrigation official, said the weak flooding also implies drought in the coming winter-spring crop for more than 650,000 hectares of paddy fields in the province.
Because the flooding was weak, weeds have grown all over the fields, increasing the threat of diseases, Hung said.
Source: Thanh Nien
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