Evaluation of PaddyLand Use in the Mekong River Delta

The Mekong River Delta (MRD) is the main area of food production of crucial importance for ensuring national food security and agricultural product export. Based on the existing paddy land and thanks to the intensive production management and exploitation of the regional potentials and advantages, paddy production has gained fairly high growth rate during recent years. However, the use of paddy land in this region still shows shortcomings and lack of sustainability. Moreover, rice production in this area is affected by negative impacts of climate change - sea level rise. This study focused on evalution of the current situation and changes in the use of paddy land and economic efficiency of the different paddy land use types in order to clarify the current situation of the paddy land use and to discern the advantages and disadvantages in paddy production in this area, thereby to propose rational structure for paddy land use.The results showed that in the 2005 - 2010 period, the paddy rice land increased by 18.4 thousand hectares but declined by 14 thousand hectares in the 2010 - 2014 period. In 2014, at the national level, the paddy rice area in MRD accounted for 53.93% and rice output accounted for 56.13%. Summer - Autumn cultivation season had the largest rice cultivation hectarage, accounting for 54% of total rice cultivation area of the region, whereas Winter-Spring season had the highest productivity (20.5% higher than the average yield of the region). However, Autumn-Winter cultivation season had the lowest productivity and area under rice. Rice production yields in moderate to fairly high income for the rice farmers, depending on soil types.