VietNamNet Bridge – The Mekong Delta is now in harvest with thousands of hectares of yellow-ripened rice extending as far as the eye can see. But local farmers have a headache because of the lack of workforce to gather the rice.

Each harvest, rice field owners in the Mekong Delta seek harvesters. This year it seems to be difficult to hire mowers. In An Giang, Dong Thap, Hau Giang, Soc Trang and Bac Lieu provinces, many ripened rice fields have not been harvested yet. In the fields one can see several women and children cutting rice. In An Giang province, just 20,000 of the total 240,000ha of rice has been harvested.

“I’ve searched for harvesters for ten days but I couldn’t hire anyone,” said a farmer named Mai Van Den from Dong Thap province.

The scarcity of mowers has pushed labour costs up. In Kien Giang province, the pay for cutting one hectare of rice has increased from VND1 million to VND1.2 to 1.3 million at present. The price is VND1.6 to VND1.7 million a hectare in the provinces of Dong Thap and An Giang.

Lack of labour has seriously affected the pace of harvesting while the next crop will come in early April. Slow harvest will make the next crop late. Besides, late harvest can make the quality of rice decrease.

According to experts, if harvesting rice manually, the Mekong Delta needs at least 26 harvesters per hectare. The Delta has over 1.6 million hectares so it needs up to 32 million workdays for harvest and 9.6 million workdays for other jobs. The local workforce can’t meet this demand.

Along with the construction of many industrial zones in the region, the shortage of labour will be more serious in the future if only human strength is used.

(Source: TT)