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Agricultural production threatening environment
Agricultural production now makes up 24% of GDP and 30% of exports. However, it seems that the development of agricultural production is threatening the environment.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has for the first time taken a serious survey on the impacts of agricultural production on the environment.
What it found, is not encouraging.
Discouraging words, repeatedly heard
The deputy head of the Cultivation Department under MARD said that the abuse of fertiliser by farmers has led to land and water resources pollution and possibly the gene mutations of some varieties of plants.
It is estimated that 60-65% of nitrogenous fertiliser (equal to 1.77mil tonnes of urea) was ‘refused’ by plants last year - not absorbed -, while 55-60% of phosphate (2.07mil tonnes) and 55-60% of kali (344,000 tonnes) similarly went into the earth.
MARD has also rung the alarm bell over the abuse of pesticide, which has caused environmental pollution and threatens the safety of food for humans. 75,800 tonnes of pesticide were consumed last year, double that of 2000.
Meanwhile, according to Hoang Kim Giao, Head of the Animal Husbandry Department under MOIT, 60% of the total 78mil tonnes of untreated solid waste every year from livestock and poultry goes directly into water drainage systems and canals. There are 16,700 animal and livestock farms throughout the country, but only 10% have waste treatment systems.
Bird flu, foot-and-mouth and blue ear epidemics are all considered as having originated from this problem.
Epidemics in aquaculture, which have been making a lot of households suffer, have also sprung from a polluted environment. Le Vien Chi, Deputy Director of the Aquaculture Department under MARD, said epidemics in aquaculture have been occurring continuously since 1993, causing the loss of VND83bil a year on average.
Tra and basa farming, which bring in billions of dollars from exports, produce 600 tonnes of waste a year, which goes directly into rivers. A survey conducted in 2006-2007 of 184 seafood processing workshops showed that 90% of the workshops caused environmental pollution at different levels.
It is estimated that the waste from rural areas is about 100mil tonnes a year, and is expected to rise to 145mil tonnes by 2010, while only 30-40% can be collected and treated. Agricultural land in suburban areas of big cities and provinces is seriously polluted with heavy metals.
What to do to settle the problem?
Minister of MARD Cao Duc Phat said that the environment is worsening, while land degradation has become a problem that needs urgent addressing.
“If we don’t settle the problem soon, agricultural production will not have sustainable development. We will never have clean agriculture if our land is dirty, our water is dirty and the environment is polluted,” Phat said.
Phat has admitted that MARD still does not have proper solutions to deal with environmental pollution.
Meanwhile, Deputy Director of the MARD’s Science, Technology and the Environment Department Nguyen Binh Thin cited a lot of reasons that he believes are making it difficult to settle the problem, including lack of staffs, and overlapping in natural resources’ management between MARD and the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment.
Thin also said that the small budget of VND22bil for 2008 proves to be not enough to draw up a master plan on dealing with environmental pollution at the national level.
VNN
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