New Zealand, which exports 80 percent of its agricultural products, is willing to transfer its advanced farming technologies and machinery to the Mekong Delta, New Zealand Ambassador Haike Manning said in a recent trip to the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho.

Talking to Vietnam News Agency reporters during the trip, the ambassador spoke highly of Mekong Delta’s potential for agricultural development, adding that the region must make breakthrough steps in mechanization and quality control in order to adapt to globalization and cope with fierce competition on the world market.

Cultivating dragon fruit in the Mekong Delta region. Photo: dangcongsan.vn

He recommended that the government uses its coordinating role and financial assistance policy to help local farmers buy machinery and invest in modern processing technology, while farmers should join hand to improve their collective capacity.

The ambassador reviewed several effective agricultural projects funded by New Zealand in the Mekong Delta, including a 4.1 million USD scheme on cultivating dragon fruit in Tien Giang province. He revealed that another project will be rolled out in the near future in Can Tho City to help local farmers adopt a new pig-rearing model.

Looking back at the recent drought and salt water intrusion in the Mekong Delta, Ambassador Haike Manning said such natural disasters will come again in the future, so the key solution is to help the region find suitable plants and animals as well as farming and husbandry techniques in order to cope with the impacts of climate change.

New Zealand has been providing 4.13 million USD in emergency aid since 2012 to Ben Tre province to help local residents, particularly coastal communities and low-income groups, to improve their capacity to cope with climate change through changing their cultivation and husbandry habits. Farmers are taught how to plant short-term and long-term crops alternately and raise animals on small scale to divide risks while ensuring regular income from different sources instead of only one.

According to the ambassador, New Zealand is also willing to share with Mekong Delta experiences in developing a system to ensure food safety and a modern distribution network.

Source: VNA