The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) is proposing strict and long-term protection of the most fertile land for rice farming in an effort to ensure food security.
The proposal is prompted by the spreading encroachment of rice farming land by industrial zones and urban areas in many localities, particularly the Red River and Mekong deltas – the country's largest rice basket regions.
MARD is working on a scheme on rice cultivation development to ensure national food security up to 2015 and 2020, which says the country has to reserve at least 3.9 million ha of land for rice farming. By 2006 the country had a total rice cultivation area of 4.13 million ha.
The ministry says although Vietnam's rice paddy productivity increased by an average 2.06 percent or 770,000 tonnes a year in the 1997-2006 period, the country's annual rice paddy output remained at approximately 36 million tonnes due to the shrinkage in area.
