Farmers in the Mekong Delta have for long adapted to rising sea levels and are used to a life of hardship, but current challenges have rendered them most vulnerable in years, experts say.

Kien Giang is one of southern coastal provinces that suffers the most heavy impact of the sea level rise.

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National and international experts including scientists and academics said at a climate change conference opened yesterday that climate change adaptation challenges were exacerbated by several other problems facing Delta farmers today.

The two-day conference in Can Tho City has drawn the participation of more than 30 experts from several universities and agencies including the American Western Washington University, German United Nations University, Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, and the delta-based universities of Can Tho and An Giang.

Participants held open discussions on the daily life challenges of delta farmers, scenarios for rice production in the coming time and the ways to assist farmers with information and better sales of agricultural products.

Delivering the keynote address to open the conference, Prof. Vo Tong Xuan of An Giang University said increase in sea levels was not a strange phenomenon to the delta farmers and they have been adapting to it for a long time.

“Before 1972, delta farmers cultivated a 7-month floating rice crop with a yield of one tonne of rice per ha; now they cultivate two crops a year with each lasting just three months, yielding 10 to 14 tonnes of rice per ha a year,” Xuan said.

He told the conference that environmental changes and impacts from development have brought several trans-border issues to the fore, including drifting gases on river flows, the spread of brown plant hoppers, and the shortage of fresh water.

Dr. Mart Stewart of the Western Washington University said, “Farming in general – and rice farming in the densely populated Mekong [Cuu Long] Delta in particular – has rarely been easy, seldom been secure, and never been risk-free.”

However, he was now alarmed by the “the growing vulnerability of many agriculturalists to powerful middlemen.”

Xuan told Viet Nam News that the only way to assist farmers was strong measures by the Government to improve the system of rice purchase in the delta.

Lack of control over prices, poor market information and lack of access to common property resources are being lost to increasing privatization were making it more difficult for farmers, especially with small landholdings, to make their livelihoods sustainable, the conference heard.

Prof. Mauro Agnoletti of the Italian University of Florence spoke of the importance of traditional knowledge and adaptation techniques in climate change learning from the Mediterranean region.

Today’s sessions will cover aquaculture and sustainability; comparison – culture – and history; perception, resilience and adaptation.

VietNamNet/VNS