BÌNH ĐỊNH — Hundreds of hectares of scallion seedlings in south-central Bình Định Province’s Phù Mỹ District are dying because of a shortage of water due to prolonged drought, local farmer said. 

Farmers often plant scallion plants to meet the demands during the annual Tết holiday. But the hot weather is affecting the scallion yield this year.

Đỗ Học, a farmer in Mỹ Quang Commune, said his family had planted 1ha of scallion seedlings, but half of them had died and the remaining would not grow due to the hot weather.

“I spent millions of đồng and took a lot of care of this crop, but I could not harvest it as expected,” Học said.

He said his scallion crop did not last till harvest time.

According to Học, local farmers would face a serious shortage of seedlings this season.

Học’s neighbours’ fields are also in the same situation.

Harsh weather over the past two weeks has killed crops in many fields here.

Farmers said the price of scallion seedlings would surge because the south was the main supplier for other regions in the country.

Another difficulty for scallion growers is the rising price of straw, one of the major materials that help the seedlings to grow well.

According to the farmers, the quality of scallions depends a lot on straw because it helps to prevent the growth of grass and conserves the moisture of the land.

Farmers will face more serious difficulties if the price of both seedlings and straw increases.

Nguyễn Thị Tâm, a local scallion grower, said she could not harvest enough seedlings for her family to plant this crop.

She said she not only harvested enough seedlings for her own field last year, but also sold the remaining to other farmers in the village to earn money.

Deputy Director of Mỹ Quang Agriculture Co-operative Võ Văn Tứ said that hot weather had destroyed many scallion fields here.

The 85ha of seedlings planted for the summer-autumn crop would not meet the demand for scallions this year, Tứ said.

According to the people’s committee of Phù Mỹ District, the ongoing drought this year had put farmers in a difficult situation.

More than 726ha of summer-autumn crops have been affected due to drought, disease and saline intrusion, the committee’s statistics showed.

About 4,580 households in 13 communes and townships of Phù Mỹ District are coping with water shortage this year. — VNS