Officials from provinces and cities in the Mekong Delta – the country’s rice granary - and rice exporters have urged the government to resume rice exports without setting limits, saying many firms face difficulties because of this.

The Vietnamese government has decided to resume rice exports, but the debate continues about whether the country should continue to do so.

Scientists predict that in 50-100 years, the Mekong Delta may be one meter below the sea water level because of climate change.

Pink shower blossoms (O moi in Vietnamese) are dubbed by locals as ‘Southwestern region’s cherry blossoms’. They are mainly seen in Phu Tan, Long Xuyen and Thoai Son districts in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang.

The Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang plans to grow other crops on around 4,000ha of fields which only grow one rice crop a year or are unproductive by 2030.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicts that the total catfish output in the world will reach 3 million tons in 2020, of which 50 percent is from Vietnam.

Authorities have instructed farmers in the Mekong Delta to sow the summer – autumn rice crop on established schedules to mitigate the damage of drought, saltwater intrusion and disease.

Since drought and saltwater intrusion are becoming severe in the Mekong Delta in the dry season, localities in the region have actively developed plans, scenarios, and implemented solutions to prevent and control drought and saltwater intrusion.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong wants countrywide improvements in developing plans to respond to natural disasters.

The Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang has declared a state of emergency after drought and saltwater intrusion hit the region, strongly affecting local residents’ lives and production.

Many universities in HCM City plan to provide scholarships to students whose families’ livelihoods have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic or who live in the Mekong Delta and are affected by drought and saltwater intrusion.

Thousands of people in the Mekong Delta Region have been given free freshwater to deal with the on-going drought and saline intrusion.

There were heavy rains yesterday, April 13, in many provinces and cities in the Mekong (Cuu Long) Delta, bringing much-needed water to hundreds of hectares of fruits, vegetables and paddy parched by drought and a water shortage.

In order to export $42 billion worth of products as planned, exports to China need to grow by 10 percent and to ASEAN by 9 percent to offset the decline in exports to the US and EU.

While the world is fleeing from coal, Vietnam is becoming increasingly addicted to coal, according to Nguyen Dang Anh Thi, an energy and enviornment expert.

The government of Vietnam has been trying to diversify investments in special-use forests (SUF) in order to improve financial flows for forest management, protection and conservation activities.

Despite being affected by drought and saltwater intrusion, the Mekong Delta harvested a record output of about 7.3 million tons of rice in the Winter-Spring crop 2019-2020.

If the local population continues to grow uncontrollably, all measures to be applied, from seawater filtering to water transfer from the east to the west, will become useless, experts say.

Hundreds of hectares of crops are withering as Dak Snghe River in Kon Ray district in Kon Tum province is being blocked by two hydropower plants.

Farmers in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang have adopted many new farming models to adapt to climate change, which has helped them cope with the severe saltwater intrusion.