Planting organic rice, a return to the roots

Growing organic rice combined with aquaculture helps improve soil health, and crabs, fish, and shrimp in turn come to reside.

Nestled by the Yên River, the village of Ngọc Bình, Quảng Ngọc Commune (Thanh Hóa) is blessed by nature with fertile land, abundant with natural aquatic resources and favorable conditions for growing a variety of crops. In the past, villagers only needed to go to the fields to be certain of catching crabs, fish, and even mud crabs—a specialty not found everywhere. But as the "thirst" for increased yield, rice, reeds... grew, so did the misuse of inputs such as fertilizers and chemical pesticides. After many years, the land and water sources became polluted, and crabs, fish, and mud crabs gradually left the familiar fields. Once lush and airy fields became hard and compact, compounded by severe saltwater intrusion and rat damage, leading to a gradual decline in rice yield. Many households became disheartened, switched professions, and abandoned their fields to grow wild. Pained by this reality, Mr. Nguyễn Công Oanh, who has been attached to the Ngọc Bình land, came up with the idea ...