Faced with climate challenges, Vietnamese rice farmers switch to shrimp
For years, Ta Thi Thanh Thuy toiled on a sliver of land sandwiched between the Mekong River and the South China Sea, a region widely known as Vietnam’s rice bowl, to grow the prized grain.
But Thuy, along with many of her neighbours, has over the past decade completed a production swap – to shrimp – a previously unlikely shift that was spurred by the effects of climate change.
As rising seawaters bring significantly increased salination levels in the Mekong Delta region, the trend toward cultivating shrimp ponds is expected to supercharge the country’s seafood industry.
The government has set an ambitious target to more than double shrimp exports from current levels to $10 billion by 2025 and Delta farmers have benefited from local authority training sessions and other measures, including some soft loans.
Khanh Vu
