Harvest season is bustling!

At nearly 12 noon in early April, Vinh Hanh fields were still bustling with people and the sound of combine harvesters rumbling non-stop… Before my eyes, the vast rice fields in harvest season were as beautiful as a countryside painting. There, I could smell the fragrant scent of new rice, of straw and the “smell” of my homeland, with the bustle of honest, hard-working workers…

Countryside painting

Vinh Hanh field located in Phu Lac - Tuy Phong district, a commune of ethnic minorities, mainly Cham people, appeared before my eyes not large, only about 70 hectares, surrounded by rows of green trees, residential areas of the commune. This rice field is irrigated by water from Song Long Song lake. Looking from afar, under the clear, sunny sky, there are rice fields that are ripe red, heavy with grain, with a space dyed in brilliant yellow, the fragrant smell of rice carrying the breath of the land and sky. There are 3 - 4 combine harvesters and a group of workers working enthusiastically. When the harvester is finished, the finished rice has been packed and gathered waiting for the truck to come to the field to pick it up. The sun is hot, so I "saved" myself a tight outfit and a floppy hat as a talisman. I walked through the rows of new green straw that were spread evenly on the ground, catching the sun, listening to the rustling.

The scent of rice, the sweet aroma of straw was so familiar to me in my childhood, that I did not hesitate to quickly pull down my mask to inhale. The rice fields that the harvesters had passed through, a group of women in the commune carried basins to glean rice. Floating in the air, flocks of birds landed just above people's heads, swooping down to the fields full of food. The laughter and chatter of the workers had not stopped... In that field, there were also hundreds of cows of the local people grazing leisurely because they had had a full meal from the countless fragrant new straws spread out on the fields.

Standing on the edge of the field, Mr. Dang Quoc Dai in Vinh Hanh village, the owner of the field that is being harvested, is sweating profusely. He is instructing a group of people to transport the newly bagged rice onto a truck to bring it back. Mr. Dai shared that his family grows 1.1 hectares of rice and this is the last harvest of the 2023-2024 winter-spring crop, with an average yield of more than 8 quintals/sao. In particular, some rice fields in Vinh Hanh, due to stem borers damaging rice, have lower yields than in previous years.

Standing and watching the fields and chatting for a while, we saw that each golden field had been quickly harvested, the rice neatly packed into bags. Seeing me staring at the harvester, Mr. Dai shared: “Farmers now no longer have to work so hard to harvest by hand and carry rice like before. When it is harvest season, people hire combine harvesters for 220,000 VND/sao. The workers who work with the machines are paid 12,000 VND/sao. In 1 day, each harvester can harvest from 1 to 4 hectares”. Unlike many years ago with rice cultivation in my hometown, now thanks to mechanization, each sao only takes about 10 minutes to harvest and thresh, after which people just need to carry the rice home…

*Transporting rice from the field to home.*

Expectations about rice brand

After more than 3 months of land improvement, planting and care, the harvest season is when they receive the results and efforts they have put in. However, farming is inherently precarious when agricultural product prices are unstable. The same goes for rice! If at the end of last year, the price of rice in the whole country in general and Binh Thuan in particular increased from 9,500 - 10,000 VND/kg, making people happy because of the good profit, then at this time the price of rice has stagnated, at 7,200 - 8,500 VND/kg (dry rice), after deducting costs, farmers make a profit of about 20 million VND/ha. Even the price of straw compared to the past few years when each roll of straw was over 25,000 VND, now it is only about 18,000 VND/roll, so the profit is not much.

Mr. Dai explained to me that at the end of the harvest season, due to the large rice yield, prices fluctuated and decreased compared to the beginning of the season. In particular, straw used to be consumed a lot because people bought it to invest in composting dragon fruit roots, but now the demand has decreased, leading to cheaper prices. Therefore, the amount of straw after this harvest, Mr. Dai's family and other households in the area are spreading it in the fields to dry, after 1 day of renting a machine to roll it into bundles, bring it home to store for livestock farming...

Indeed, compared to the province's major rice growing areas such as Bac Binh, Ham Thuan Bac, Tanh Linh, Duc Linh, the place I am standing is not a locality with a large rice growing area. Tuy Phong currently has only over 2,200 hectares of rice growing land, with 3 crops per year. From a dry and harsh land, but in recent years, thanks to the irrigation water source ensuring irrigation, the average rice yield of the district has still reached over 7.2 tons/ha. Among them, many farming households, thanks to the application of technical advances in cultivation and good care, always achieve high rice yields, over 9 tons/ha. According to the assessment of Mr. Nhu Quoc Thich - Head of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Tuy Phong district, this winter-spring crop, people mainly sow varieties N25, Dai Thom 8, ML 48, ML 217, ML 57, of which ML 48 accounts for 70% of the total rice area. However, the rice area of Long Dien 1 during the flowering stage was affected by stem borers, which affected the yield. The district's plan is that as soon as the winter-spring crop ends, the locality will meet to discuss and agree on limiting the sowing area. When there is continued rain, depending on the amount of water flowing into the lake, production will continue. However, the sowing time must ensure the province's crop schedule.

The sun was high above the sky, the hottest weather of the day, but the working atmosphere in Vinh Hanh field had not stopped. Not far away, in the fields that had been harvested earlier, farmers had begun plowing and drying the soil to prepare for the summer-autumn crop when there was irrigation water and a specific plan from the locality.

*"Song Long Song" rice is a 3-star OCOP product of Tuy Phong district.*

Saying goodbye to the people in Vinh Hanh field, I felt the peaceful and prosperous beauty of the countryside and felt more clearly the colorful life. In that place is the new rural commune of Phu Lac, people are working and producing enthusiastically every day. Also in that sunny land, I raised further expectations for a high-quality rice area, for the brand "Song Long Song Rice" which has been certified as a 3-star OCOP product of the district since 2020.

“Oh, whoever holds a full bowl of rice, each grain is fragrant and fragrant, yet each grain is bitter and painful” - a folk song I heard since childhood, praising the diligence, hard work and creativity of farmers suddenly appeared in my mind. Memories of the harvest season in me continued to be bustling and bustling...

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