Since 1975, the region has increased its rice output by threefold (from nearly 6 to over 18 million tonnes). It has also made substantial achievements in aquaculture and fruit farming. However, people in the region have not yet escaped poverty.

Transforming agricultural structure - a thorny problem
Although there are many domestic high-quality rice varieties, imported rice has flooded the market in the Mekong Delta region. It is indeed a paradoxical result of what has happened in one of the major granaries of the country, which produces as much as 17 million tonnes of rice per year. Annually, the region claims to have lost around 20 percent of its total rice output (more than 3 million tonnes). The reason is that there is only a rice storage centre with a capacity of 30,000 tonnes and local farmers have to preserve rice themselves by using manual methods.

In recent years, the region has also achieved the fastest growth rate of aquatic products. However, there remain shortcomings due to hasty development but poor planning, not to say that consumers now have high requirements of food hygiene and safety.

The free breeding of shrimps has led to unexpected consequences, such as irrevocably submerged land and poor harvests. For many years, people in the Mekong Delta provinces of Ca Mau, Kien Giang, Tra Vinh, Ben Tre, Soc Trang and Bac Lieu had to cope with a severe disease among shrimps. As affected areas have increased markedly, more and more local farmers have run into debt. According to statistics from the Ministry of Fisheries, since the beginning of this year, the Mekong Delta region has lost more than one billion shrimp offsprings mainly because of poor breeding techniques and an unsuitable breeding environment.

In the past, some seafood processing factories had plenty of stocks, while many farmers raising tra and basa catfish suffered great losses due to price fluctuations and had to quit their job. However, in recent times, many factories have lacked seasonal stocks and had to import stocks (including tiger prawn and catfish) from other regional countries for their processing activities. In early 1990s, during the structural shift of agriculture in the Mekong Delta, fruit trees were once believed to have high economic value. But, in fact, the prices of domestic fruits have remained very low, due to a lack of effective post-harvest solutions to keep fruits in good conditions.

Thorny problem for local farmers
Most local farmers often find it difficult to choose which types of trees to plant or animals to raise. In fact, many concentrated agricultural areas have crumbled, and failed to provide adequate supplies to factories. Judging from price fluctuations on the domestic fruit market, many farmers have suddenly changed their crop pattern by growing other kinds of fruit trees, thus breaking the concentrated zoning plan for development of special fruit trees and eco-tourism.

The Mekong Delta region has a long coastal area (more than 700km) with 28,000 km of rivers and canals. The volume of goods transported through the Mekong Delta system of waterways has reached 9-10 million tonnes per year, of which only 30 percent is directly exported from its seaports. Although the charge for one tonne of goods directly exported through seaports of the Mekong Delta region is US$3-5 cheaper than through seaports of Ho Chi Minh City, this advantage has not yet been fully exploited. One reason is that big cargo ships still find it difficult to anchor at Dinh An and Tien seaports, the two main ones of the Mekong Delta region.