Maclean et al. - 2002 - Rice almanac source book for the most important e

Rice harvest transport on the Mekong River system.
Production constraints
The major constraints are flooding at the end of
the rainy season and drought in the dry season.
Small farm size, a problem that is expected
to increase even further because of population
pressure, is a major constraint. The low and
declining price of rice with the increase in rice
harvest provides inadequate income for the
sustenance of farming families. The low
profitability in rice farming is a major
disincentive to sustaining growth in productivity.
Farmers have been trying to diversify into
vegetables, fruit trees, and fish cultivation but
without much success because of the lack of
markets.
The current level of physical infrastructure is
inadequate to support potential increases in
agricultural production. Two-thirds of the farms
have no access to drying areas; most of the crop is
sun-dried. Storage space is about 1 million m 3 or
67% of the total needed. Transportation for
moving the crop to market is inadequate. Energy
is also in short supply. Although electricity is
available in most provinces, most rural
households do not have access to it.
Production opportunities
The increased production of rice and productivity
of rice-based farming systems remain the
country’s primary goals. Studies in the Mekong
River Delta have focused on various rice-based
farming systems models: rice-fish integrated with
fruit trees, rice-shrimp in saline areas, rice-fish in
deepwater areas, and rice–cash crops in the
remaining small amount of floating-rice area.
104 Rice almanac