Drought and saline intrusion in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region between 2019 and 2020 have yet to reach the final historic peak, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has painted further pessimistic scenarios of the natural disasters, Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong warned. Mr. Cuong made the statement at a meeting on drought and saline intrusion prevention and control in the Mekong Delta province of Long An on June 20. It is absolutely necessary to figure out suitable crops for production and cultivation methods fitting weather conditions, he stressed. The dry season 2019-2020 hit the Mekong Delta region since the middle of November 2019, about a month earlier than in previous years, while it lasted twice as long as the dry season in 2016, according to the MARD-run Directorate of Water Resources. About 58,000 hectares of the winter-spring and winter rice crops in the region were destroyed by the saline intrusion, and 8,715 hectares of aquaculture production, including fish and shrimp, were affected. Taken together, natural disasters disrupted the water supply of 96,000 local households during the season. (Bao Chinh Phu, Bao Chinh Phu, Tuoi Tre, Nhan Dan, VietnamBiz, VietnamNews)
