Environment and land
Farmers flout crop warnings
Farmers in the Central Plains provinces are planting more off-season rice crops than allowed at their own peril, a senior irrigation officer warned. Bowdaeng Takaew, head of the Ayutthaya Irrigation Project, said many farmers in the Central region have refused to cooperate with authorities and ...
Mekong water diplomacy vital
Dr Lê Tuấn Anh, deputy director of the Research Institute for Climate Change at Cần Thơ University, speaks to Sài Gòn Giải Phóng (Liberated Sài Gòn) newspaper about the negative impact of climate change. Do you anticipate that in 2017 the Mekong Delta region will face a drought as severe as last year’s? ...
Switzerland supports agriculture and forest college reform in Laos
The Swiss government has provided US$4.2 million for the third phase of the Support to the Reform of the Agriculture and Forestry Colleges project in Laos. The overall goal of SURAFCO is to strengthen the quality and practical teaching in all five Agriculture and Forestry ...
Savannakhet orders 253 furniture plants to shut down
Savannakhet provincial authorities have ordered 253 family-based furniture plants to shut down many of them operating without business licenses, while some are failing to meet set standards. Some 166 plants are operating without business licenses, while the 87 remaining plants approved by districts’ authorities failed ...
Chinese investors reconsider plantations as profits prove elusive in banana business
Some Chinese investors plan to shutter their banana farms in Laos and relocate to other countries while others plan to replace the yellow herbaceous fruit with other agricultural crops after sustaining losses. The northern province of Bokeo has been a major location for banana plantations ...
Potatoes to take root
Cambodia’s eastern Mondulkiri province will become the country’s first hub for potato growing after a successful pilot project, researchers say. Cheang Hong, of the Potato Research Center at the Royal University of Agriculture, said a team spent several months studying weather conditions, potato varieties and ...
Japan to help country go green
Japan has signed a three-year deal to help train government officials on attracting environmentally friendly investment. The Environment Ministry and Japan International Cooperation Agency on March 6 signed the agreement to educate officials about how to use environmental impact assessments and enforce pollution controls. The project is ...
JICA to aid impact studies
The Ministry of the Environment signed an agreement yesterday afternoon with the Japan International Cooperation Agency in an effort to improve the Ministry of the Environment’s capacity to curb pollution and review environmental impact assessments for development projects. “[JICA] will deploy advisers and discuss with officers ...
Hanoi’s iconic lakes need urgent clean-up help
One sunny morning in October 2016, Hanoi residents living around the city’s West Lake woke up to a foul and irritating smell. “We could not bear the overwhelming smell,” Ms Huong, a local resident said, wearing a mask while inside her home. “But we have nowhere ...
VN lacks gender equality strategy: experts
It is fairly common that women are forbidden from going near shrimp farms in several southern provinces because they are believed to bring bad luck. Rooted in this superstition is the notion that shrimp farming is a man’s job. Thus it was that Huỳnh Thị ...
