Ben Tre (VNS/VNA) -Despite lacking a college or university education, farmer Pham Van Nhut inMekong Delta province of Ben Tre has made great contributions to agriculturaldevelopment in his community.

Nhut, a 52-year-old from Giong Trom District’s Phong My Commune, has restoredor created more than 10 rice varieties with high quality, productivity andpest-resistance.

There were many challenges on the way to his success. However, he overcame themwith the determination of a war veteran.

After demobilisation from the army in 1987, Nhut began rice cultivation on3,000sq.m of land his parents gave him. Like other farmers at that time, hestruggled to make ends meet.

He even thought of replacing rice with other plants after suffering losses foryears.

In 1995, Nhut had the chance to attend a training class on rice hybridsorganised by Ben Tre Province’s Agricultural Breeding Centre in collaborationwith Can Tho University.

Inspired by teachers like professor Huynh Quang Tin and Nguyen Thi Thu Cuc fromCan Tho University, he started creating his own rice strains.

"I wanted to generate a rice variety that is suitable to my locality toease the hardship for local residents but I didn’t know how to do it. I onlyfinished 12th grade at school and had not studied any special educationyet," Nhut recalled.

Then, in 2011, he wasinvited to take part in a programme on rice breeding and biodiversityconservation under the framework of a project sponsored by the Netherlands.

Through the training and visiting key rice-production provinces in MekongDelta, Nhut realised the need to restore OC10, a rice variety which suffereddegradation, to provide salinity-resistant rice for local growers, which isalso favoured by vermicelli makers.

It took him a year to complete the work. Following this success, Nhut revivedother rice varieties including AGPPS-103, Hau My and Hon Dat, which were alllater certified.

Nhut decided to expand his rice variety production.

He created a new rice variety named PM1 (Phong My 1) with high yield andpest-resistance.

“Despite having some advantages, I found out that the PM1 was not as deliciousas I thought,” he said, adding that it took him three years to breed thevariety.

Nhut continued generating other new rice varieties.

He tested multiplying herbal rice seeds that his friend brought to him fromJapan three years ago. Now he has more than 3,000sq.m planted with this kind ofrice, yielding four tonnes per hectare.

The herbal rice was fedwith organic fertiliser to protect the environment. Fortunately, the rice waspopular among consumers. With price of herbal rice of between 20,000-40,000 VND(0.9-1.7 USD) a kilo, double or four times higher than normal rice, farmerslike him were in the money.

Nhut also worked with farmer in his commune to set up Phong My Rice BreedingProduction Unit, specialised in providing high quality rice varieties. Eachyear, the unit supplies hundreds tonnes of rice varieties to the market.

In addition, Nhut has signed contracts with local farmers on organic farming togrow LH16 and herbal rice varieties and he takes care of sales.

Nhut said in the future he could collaborate with other farmers in building abrand for rice from Phong My Commune.

As his prestige spread over Mekong Delta, a Lao company invited him to gothe Champasak, a province in southwestern Laos, to introduce histechniques to local farmers. It was here that he taught local residents how touse plowing and sowing machines.

Convinced by the effectiveness of the restored OC10, the Laos governmentdecided to buy the rice seeds for cultivation.

Thanks to his achievements, Nhut won the title ‘Rice variety breeding andbiodiversity conservation farmers in 1995-2015 from the Mekong Delta DevelopmentResearch Institute and was honoured as an excellent farmer by provincialauthorities in 2014 and 2016.

“Nhut was the one who pioneered in start-up business in the locality,” said HoVan Tri, chairman of Phong My Commune’s People’s Committee.

Thanks to his efforts, Nhut’s family earns hundreds of millions of Vietnamese dongeach year through rice cultivation, he said.

Tri hoped that in the future more support would be given to Nhut so he couldexpand his organic production. Once local rice had a trademark, income forlocal farmers would be boosted, he said.- VNS/VNA