Mr. Hoang Nghia Hieu, Vice Chairman of Nghe An provincial People's Committee informed that in the context, Nghe An province has about 10,000 people coming back to the locality, therefore, the good protection of rice, vegetables and livestock areas from diseases was really important. The province was also determined to promote the growth of the industry since many other areas being affected also.

The people in Phong Tho district (Lai Chau) gather bananas for export. Photo: Khanh Nguyen

“It is worrying that currently there are 1,700ha of rice suffering from blast disease in the province, of which 222 ha is seriously infected, while most of the rice there will be blossoming in April so there is a risk of rice blast disease. In addition, over 55% of rice area in the province is planted with high quality one, which are sensitive to weather and disease, so we are orienting the localities and professional agencies to strictly control the situation and harm of epidemics”- stated Mr. Hieu.

Mr. Hieu said that in addition to advising people to use pesticide on the principle of "4 true", the functional agencies also require the people to use pesticide which is suitable to the real situation.

Mr. Dang Ngoc Son - Vice Chairman of Ha Tinh People's Committee affirmed that the province was taking many measures to promote agricultural development, especially in the context of increasing food demand.

“We have oriented the professional agencies and localities to focus on disease treatment, basically, the blast disease is under good control but it is still not neglected subjectively due to the complicated weather situation” added Mr. Son.

The agriculture sector in Lam Dong has also set a goal of promoting production development in the context of epidemics with a focus on ensuring livestock, food, vegetables and other short-term crops.

According to the statistics of Lam Dong Department of Crop Production and Protection, in the first 3 months of 2020, the total area of ​​vegetables and flowers in the whole province was 25,502 ha, accounting for 103.1% as planned, including vegetables and various kinds of beans with 22,120ha, many kinds of flowers with 3,382.5ha.

At present, the localities with large agricultural areas such as Da Lat, Don Duong and Duc Trong have planned to increase its production to maximize production and business capabilities and increase the domestic market as well as export.

Besides, Lai Chau Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in coordination with related agencies and localities continues to propagate to organizations and individuals in and outside the province on mechanisms, policies and schemes that have been issued to attract investment in the agricultural sector.

Particularly, they have been focusing on the encouragement of conversing inefficient rice and maize areas to attract investment in developing and expanding the area of ​​key crops with its advantages such as medicinal plants and fruit trees, etc, directing the people to cultivate a number of high quality pure rice varieties to strengthen the structure towards increasing product value per unit of cultivated land.

For banana growing export area, mainly in Phong Tho district, the district strengthened the propaganda, training, guiding farmers to pay attention to good care of nearly 4,000 hectares of existing bananas; timely pest control, ensuring the banana-free disease area, organizing study to find markets for domestic and foreign consumption markets.