Vũ Thi Nhan (Vietnam)

THANK YOU VERY MUCH to DANG VAN HUNG, rice breeder at the Syngenta R&D station in Nam Dinh, for making this interview possible and providing so much additional information about rice growing in Vietnam.

Name: Vũ Thi Nhan
Age: 64
Residence: Cao Lông, Nam Dinh province (Red River delta)
Family: Married, 3 children
Type and size of farming activity: Rice (9.4 sào =0.28ha)
Work force: Herself and her husband
Why her: She is one of the farmers who help out on the fields of the Syngenta R&D station

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You only farm a very small plot – are you a typical smallholder rice farmer of Northern Vietnam?
Yes, I think that I’m a very typical rice farmer of Northern Vietnam. Most families here own small plots and grow rice mainly for their own consumption, often having an addition source of income. In our case, the rice we farm is enough to feed the larger family; if there is some left, I sell it on the market. My husband used to work in the army and we now get some additional money from his pension.
Like everybody around here, we grow rice twice a year (Jan-May and June-October). We only plant one variety of inbred rice (Bt7) and we get an average yield of 5 tonnes/ha.

Most farmers I see working in the field around here seem to be women. How come?
The men work as hard as we do in the rice fields. But as I told you, the men often have another job in the city in addition to farming. So they only get involved in the most important phases (plowing, sawing, harvesting, applying pesticides…) and the women care of the fields on a daily base, performing activities such as weeding, checking the irrigation or applying fertilizer.

You have been working as a rice grower for nearly 5 decades. How have things changed over time?
Things have changed indeed. First of all, when I was a child I remember that everybody was farming rice, there was no other option. Now many people have other jobs in addition to farming, or they stopped farming rice completely. And then, technology and new practices have made our lifes easier: We are now using machines for plowing and harvesting. [Her village owns a few which the farmers can rent out]. A few years ago, following recommendations from the government, we also switched from ‘replanting’ to ‘direct sowing’ in the spring growing season, which means much less work. [In the first case the seeds are being planted in a ‘nursery’ so that they can be better taken care of; they get replanted in the big fields after ca. 3 weeks]. Many farmers now also chose to use herbicides instead of weeding by hand.

Are you happy as a rice farmer?
I’m very happy! I like all the activities in the field, but what I prefer is harvest time. I want to continue working in the field for as long as possible, I would get bored at home! This is a hard job though and I can understand that many people – my children for example – don’t want to do it anymore. But they won’t be able to stop me!

Vu and other farmers weeding on the Syngenta test fields

Typical rice plots of Northern Vietnam (Yenbai province)

 

Sia Lee (Laos)

Name: Sia Lee
Age: 25
Residence: Phon Van, Luang Prabang province
Family: Married, 1 baby daughter
Type and size of farming activity: 7 ha rice; 1 ha vegetables (morning glory, cabbage, lemon grass, chilies + some ‘western’ (he says!) vegetables such as beetroot, radish, zucchini; 13 water buffaloes (9 for meat, 4 for work)
Work force: A community of 7 families who own and work the fields together – additional help from villagers at harvest time (up to 50 people)
Why him: His farming community offers tours for tourists including explanations and hands-on demonstrations of all stages of rice growing. We attended a tour and Sia was our ‘guide’ (he speaks good English). The project is called The Living Land and I definitely recommend it to anybody visiting Luang Prabang, Laos.

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Can you tell me a little bit about your background and what you are doing now for a living?
I was born in a village in the mountains near Luang Prabang, in a family of 14 children. We are part of the ‘Mnong’ so-called ‘hill tribe’. Like everybody else in the village, we were subsistence farmers. As a teenager I went to study IT in Luang Prabang; at the same time I was also working in a restaurant and helping out my parents on the farm – very hard! After I finished my studies, I realized that I couldn’t get a job in IT in Laos, so I went back to my parents’ who in the meantime had moved to the village where we currently live, very close to Luang Prabang. Until today we have been farming together, with 6 other families. We grow rice for our own consumption and vegetables, which we eat ourselves but also directly sell to hotels and restaurants in Luang Prabang. Additional revenue comes from our ‘Living Land farm’ project, which we started in 2011 with the help of westerners: We give tours on our farm and teach tourists about growing rice. This is getting more and more popular: during high season we give the tours daily.

You have just showed us the various stages of growing rice using only very traditional methods and no machines at all. Is this the way you grow rice for real? Can you briefly describe the various stages from sowing to cooking?
We now have one tractor for ploughing (and don’t plow with the buffalo anymore), but apart from that, this is the way we work on our farm. Note that we only have one ‘growing cycle’ lasting from June-July (when we plant) to October-November (when we harvest). In our case we grow 5 different varieties of sticky (=glutinous) rice, the main type of rice consumed in Laos, and one variety of non-sticky rice. We get an average yield of 4t/ha.
Here is a quick overview of the stages [also see photos below]: 1) We select the ‘good’ (= with big kernel inside) seeds from last year to be planted 2) We prepare the fields (ploughing, watering…) 3) We plant the seeds by hand in the ‘nursery area’, 4) After 3-4 weeks we replant them by hand in the big field. We use no chemicals; there is no need – as fertilizer we use buffalo pooh mixed with limestone, we get rid of the weeds by hand, and we don’t much problems with insects or fungi (and there are snails and fishes in the field to eat them). 5) After 4-5 months (depending on the variety) we dry the fields and harvest the rice by hand. 6) After harvest we let the rice dry for a few weeks. 7) We thrash the rice bundles on a wooden board in order to get the rice grains out. 8) We carry the cleaned rice grains home in baskets (drying and thrashing usually takes place next to the field). 9) This is how we conserve rice; It’s only before we need the rice for cooking that we separate the white kernel from the husk, first with a rice pounder and then simply by ‘turning’ the rice in the air to get rid of the lighter husks (this is typically the women’s job). There you go, the rice is ready for consumption! It’s called ‘brown’ rice because the grain is still covered by the next layer underneath the husk (since the husk has been removed manually).

What about the average Lao farmer – does he also grow rice in such a traditional way?
I would say that agriculture in Laos is slowly getting modernized and more mechanized. For example many farmers in the plains now use tractors to plow their fields, and some also use machines for planting and harvesting. Chemicals are also being increasingly used. However in the villages where everybody farms rice – in the hills for example – it is still very common to work as a community, planting and harvesting together, everything done by hand.

What is the farming activity you like best/least?
I love the time of harvest. There is a real sense of community because we are so many people working in the field together. There is also a real sense of achievement: our rice is ready, we now have our food for the next season! The activity I like the least is weeding – it needs to be done all the time, especially since we only grow rice in the rainy season! It’s painful work but we don’t want to use herbicides – they are too expensive; and we have rather small plots and enough workforce, this can be done by hand!

What’s your goal for the future
I want to live a happy life with my family and have enough rice to eat! Currently I’m happy with what and how we farm, as well as with our ‘Living Land’ project – no need to change or increase anything. But this could change in the future, we’ll see.

Some of the steps of growing rice in images (mouse-over the image to see the caption):

Selecting the ‘good’ grains to be planted: Put the grains in salty water; the good ones are heavy and sink to the bottom; the ones at the surface can be discarded

Plowing the fields – many farmers in Laos still do this using a water buffalo (and yes, it’s ME skilfully maneuvering the plow!)

Replanting the 3 week old seedlings to the bigger field – Raphaël is helping Lee

6 week old rice

After harvest, thrashing the rice to get out the grains

This is how the ’empty’ rice plants are piled up – to be used as animal forage

A traditional way of breaking the rice husks

Separating the rice kernels from the (lighter) husks – always a women’s job in Laos

Steaming the rice in a bamboo basket

Sticky rice is ready!

About rice – interview with the expert

Dr. KeeFui Kon is an agronomist who has led the Syngenta Research & Development (R&D) rice program since 2010. He is working out of Singapore. I used the opportunity of travelling through Singapore to meet with Kon and ask him a few questions about rice.

Why are you passionate about rice, what is special about that crop?
First of all, rice is a crucial crop for us in Asia. It’s the most important food staple. In South-East Asia, on average people still eat over one kg of rice per person and per week. Nearly 90% of the world’s rice is grown in Asia.

Then, I really like the ‘romantic’ aspect of rice! Rice landscapes are incredibly beautiful, especially the terraces in the hills with water. I love how they change color during the growing season, moving from light green to dark green, then to yellow and finally brown.

From a scientific perspective, rice is a very interesting crop. Because it always has to be in water, there is like a third dimension to it. The element water needs to be considered as part of the ecosystem and this makes it more difficult to study for the scientist, and also more difficult to manage for the farmer. There is still some research that needs to be done to unlock all the secrets of rice, especially combining the different production practices together.

Could you provide a brief overview of the rice growing countries in Asia and how they differ in terms of varieties used and methods of cultivation?
In terms of varieties used, you can roughly divide Asia into three: On the Indian subcontinent, non-glutinous varieties are being grown (the consumers there want ‘loose’ rice); in China, almost only glutinous (= sticky) varieties are being grown (the consumers there eat their rice with chopsticks); and S-E Asia is somewhere in between. The quality of the rice for the consumer is related to taste and smell, which is defined by a set of genes; therefore the quality of the rice is related to the specific varieties that have been bred and selected. In Thailand and Vietnam for example, they tend to grow high-quality rice like the ‘Jasmine’ varieties, whereas in China, yield is more important and nearly half the rice varieties grown are ‘hybrids’. [Like any other hybrid crop, hybrid rice is produced by crossbreeding different kinds of rice, which has the effect of producing more vigorous and higher-yielding offspring.]

The length of the growing season depends very much of the climate. In cooler areas, like in the north of China, Korea and Japan, the growing season is longer to give the plants more time to develop (up to 180 days) and therefore there is only one growing season. In warmer areas, farmers can fit two, or sometimes even three, growing seasons in one year.

In terms of growing method, farmers across Asia have two distinct practices: the transplanted rice method (when rice seedlings are transplanted from the nursery) and the direct seeding method (when the seeds are directly sown in the field). These are roughly at 80/20 proportion and I guess will stay in this ratio for a long time to come.

Can you please keep on talking about the differences in terms of technology used and mechanization for rice cultivation in Asia?
In Asia there are basically three categories of rice farmers: The ones who have not changed or will change very little, with a yield inferior to 3 tons/ha (about 20%). Next, the traditional farmers who manage to reach a yield between 3 and 5 tons/ha (about 60%). And finally, the progressive farmers who obtain a yield higher than 5 tons/ha (about 20%).

The yield very much depends on technology/mechanization. Whereas the farmers in the first category nearly use no technology at all and the ones in the third category make full use of technology, there are more differences in the middle category. Those farmers invest in technology at various levels; if they have the money and the will, they would probably start changing their practices in the following way (in this order):
–  Switch from manual to mechanical harvesting, since this is the most labor-demanding task
–  Use machines to prepare the soil, since this activity demands a lot of energy when done manually
–  Invest in mechanical planting, using a mechanical seeder or transplanter
–  Use (more/better) chemicals to fertilize their soil and protect their crops

Let’s talk a bit more about rice yield. The average world yield for rice is 4.5 tons/ha (2012 figure) but for example Australian rice farmers reach yields of over 10 tons/ha, whereas it’s less than 3 tons/ha in Madagascar. Why are there such differences in productivity worldwide
As I said earlier, the yield depends on the rice variety (for example, hybrids have better yields than conventional varieties.) It also depends on the degree of mechanization and the growing practices (for example, when planted with a machine, the seeds are distributed more evenly, they grow more uniformly and can be harvested at the same time, i.e., at the ‘ideal moment’ of 80% of maturity). In addition, it depends on the climate. Even if rice can grow in many different environments, it is quite a fussy crop. To grow at its best it needs the right amount of water, a lot of direct sunshine and an optimum temperature of 20 to 30°C during the ripening phase. Most of these conditions prevail in Australia, where they also have less diseases and pests. On the other hand in the tropics, it can sometimes be too rainy, too cloudy and too hot – and there are over 25 different pests and diseases that can attack rice!

Could you summarize the main focus in rice research nowadays?
A lot of the rice research is in molecular biology and genetics. I would say that the main focus of rice breeders is to develop varieties and hybrids which are as tasty as existing varieties but provide better yield with improved resistance to diseases and pests.

How do you see the future of rice growing in Asia?
I expect a similar development than with agriculture elsewhere, with a consolidation of the sector: There will be less rice farmers; they will farm on bigger holdings of more fields and will achieve higher yields. Overall the production and productivity will continue to increase, but the surface used for planting rice will slightly decrease, especially in marginal rainfall areas where there is competition for water supply with population growth.

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Some facts about rice

• Rice is the seed of the grasss pecies  Oryza sativa (Asian rice) or Oryza glaberrima (African rice). It is a monocot and is normally grown as an annual plant.
• It is the agricultural commodity with the third-highest worldwide production, aftersugarcane and  In 2012, the world dedicated 162 million hectares for rice cultivation and the total production was about 738 million tons. The average world farm yield for rice was 4.5 tons per hectare.
• Asian farmers still account for 87% of the world’s total rice production. Biggest rice producers are China, India, and Indonesia. The biggest rice exporting countries are India, Vietnam, Thailand.
• Rice processing: The seeds of the rice plant are first milled using a rice huller to remove the chaff (the outer husks of the grain) – at this point in the process, the product is called brown rice. The milling may continue, removing the bran, i.e., the rest of the husk and the germ, thereby producing white rice. Then white rice may be buffed with glucose or talc powder (often called polished rice, though this term may also refer to white rice in general), parboiled, or processed into flour.

Mohamad Ramzanpoor (Iran)

Name: Mohamad Ramzanpoor
Age: 40
Residence: Kiashar (Gilan province) every summer for 3 months. The rest of the year the family lives in London, UK (they emigrated there 13 years ago)
Family: Married to Sara, 1 son
Type and size of farming activity: Rice (4.5 ha)
Work force: His 2 plots (3 ha and 1.5 ha) are being operated by 2 friends of his who are farmers
Why him: We met Mo on the beach near his hometown. He started talking to us in excellent English and he turned out to be involved in rice farming and know a lot about it
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We have seen so many rice paddies today. Is this one of the main rice growing region in Iran and can you tell more about it?
Indeed, you are in Gilan province and this is one of the two main rice growing regions in Iran, and the one which produces rice of the highest quality. Here we have a sub-tropical climate with a lot of rainfall and excellent river water – very appropriate for rice growing.
Probably over 100 rice varieties have been tested but today only the 4 most suitable ones are grown: 2 ‘cheap’ varieties for the ‘poor people’, and 2 better ones of which ‘Hasani’ is the best one.
Due to the slightly ‘colder’ climate, we only plant/harvest rice once a year – from April to August.
The rice is being sold at the factory where it is being processed, directly to customers across Iran.

How has the rice growing technology evolved over time around here?
As I told you, thanks to testing and selection over centuries, we are now growing excellent rice varieties here. Chemicals are being used – fertilizers, insecticides and fungicides. The agriculture is also becoming more mechanized – for about 2 years, the seeds are not planted by hand anymore, but by machines; this is better, because of more even rows. I’m not sure about the average yield, but one thing is sure, on the Iranian rice market quality goes before quantity. Personally, I get a bit less than 3t/ha (Hasani variety).

You bought your rice fields about 10 years ago, when you were already living in the UK. Why? And to what extent do you get personally involved in farming?
You know, rice growing is in my genes! Some 50 years ago everybody was growing rice here, including my parents and I personally worked on the rice fields as a young man. I decided to buy those fields to somewhat stay connected with my roots in Iran – and also to do some business! I don’t do the farming myself, since I live in the UK most of the year and honestly, the work is just too hard! But I’m closely connected to the farmers who take care of my fields. They get half of the harvest, I get the other half. Some of that is used for personal consumption of our wider family, the rest is being sold. Since I don’t need the money right away, I can sell it so that I’m being paid back over time – with interests – and I can make more money with it.