Irrigation canals are degraded, making it difficult for people to produce.

After decades of use, the N1-11A irrigation canal passing through Trieu Thuan commune, Trieu Phong district has now seriously degraded. The damaged canal can no longer function as an irrigation canal for the fields, and needs the attention of all levels and sectors, and early remedial measures to help farmers produce smoothly.

Canal N1-11A, which serves irrigation for about 100 hectares of rice fields of people in Trieu Thuan commune, Trieu Phong district, has seriously degraded - Photo: D.V

Following Mr. Le Van Bieu, Director of Trieu Thuan Agricultural Cooperative, we went to survey the N1-11A irrigation canal - one of two important main canals serving irrigation for about 100 hectares of rice of Trieu Thuan commune people. This canal is about 2 km long, built about 30 years ago.

Over a long period of use, the canal has become increasingly degraded, especially in the last 5 years. Observing the actual situation at this canal, we found that most of the canal had broken mortar joints on both sides of the canal walls; the bottom of the canal was punctured in many places; there were many large punctures on the canal walls; the cross-channel braces, manholes, and manhole covers leading water to the fields along the canal were cracked, and cement was falling off in pieces...

“Every year around September and October, when the rainy season occurs, the water flows down strongly, causing further damage to the already degraded canal. The areas where the canal is punctured are often severely eroded, threatening to wash away sections of the canal in vulnerable areas. Also because the canal is degraded, a large amount of water is lost. My family grows 2 hectares of rice fields, and every time it is time to prepare the land, sow rice, or cut off water to harvest rice, irrigation is affected because the water flow on this canal is unstable,” said Mr. Truong Thanh Vinh, a resident of Vo Phuc An village, Trieu Thuan commune, pointing to a section of the canal full of holes, lamenting.

Faced with the severe degradation of the canal after the heavy rains and floods in 2020, some short sections of the canal were repaired from funds raised to overcome the consequences of storms and floods. However, this repair is only temporary.

“Especially in the winter-spring crop of 2023, after a fairly heavy flood, a canal section of about 20 meters long was completely washed away. In order to promptly serve irrigation for the fields, the cooperative invested tens of millions of dong to urgently build the canal section in about a week to complete,” said Mr. Bieu.

In addition to the above-mentioned repairs, in recent years, Trieu Thuan Agricultural Cooperative has invested 15-20 million VND annually to hire workers to apply cement and make minor repairs to severely punctured canal sections that cause water loss. In many places, due to the large number of punctures in the canal walls, the cooperative staff and irrigation workers have even used plastic bags to cover the holes to limit water loss to the outside.

According to Mr. Bieu, currently, because the canal has almost completely degraded, the rate of irrigation water loss to the outside is quite large, causing a shortage of water for production for dozens of hectares at the end of the canal. Every summer-autumn crop, the cooperative has to mobilize pumps to pump water into the canal and push it down to the end of the stream so that people have enough water for timely production.

In the past, the Cooperative has held many meetings to discuss plans to repair and upgrade the canal, but due to lack of funds, it has not been able to implement it. The Cooperative has also submitted a report to the district and Nam Thach Han Irrigation Enterprise, reporting the current state of the canal's degradation, and asking for financial support to repair it to serve the immediate production of the people.

“To ensure long-term irrigation for local fields, we recommend that relevant levels and sectors pay attention to supporting the construction of a new canal. If there are no timely and effective measures or a new canal is not built soon, there is a risk that in the following crop seasons, over 40 hectares of local rice will face a serious shortage of irrigation water, especially in the downstream areas,” Mr. Bieu suggested.

German Vietnamese

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