VietNamNet Bridge – Farmers in the suburbs of HCM City have lost their livelihood because their cultivation land has been poisoned by industrial waste from nearby industrial zones.

People visiting the An Ha bridge area in Cu Chi district these days are surprised because the land is quite different from what they saw many years ago. The 130 hectares of land for rice cultivation cannot be used.

Hoang Minh Lanh, a local farmer, said the polluted water from An Ha canal overflowing its banks has turned the rice field area into a red and smelly bog.

Some years ago, the city’s authorities decided to take back land from farmers to make room for industrial workshops.

However, since it was unclear when the projects would start, some local farmers continued to grow rice.

However, their great efforts in vain. It is impossible to cultivate fields anymore, because the water sources and the land are polluted.

On an area near rubber production workshops in hamlets 7 and 8 of Binh My Commune, the once fertile soil has been left idle.

Vu Van Manh, a farmer, said he was growing rau muong (a popular kind of vegetable in Vietnam), because the land there is not good for rice cultivation.

“The rubber workshops discharge untreated waste water every day which kills all varieties of rice. Only rau muong can live in such an environment,” he said.

The five hectares of rice fields next to the Le Minh Xuan IZ in Binh Chanh district have also been deserted for the last few years.

Locals call the area “the dead land” because it has been poisoned by waste water from the nearby IZ.

Nguyen Van Nhung, a landlord, said no animal and no plant can live in the area, so it would be better to leave the land untilled.

The other land areas in the same district have also suffered from the waste water from Le Minh Xuan and other IZs on the upper course which flow to the areas with the Thay Cai – An Ha canal.

In the past, local farmers could expect bountiful crops with an average yield of 5 tons per hectare, but now they can get 3 tons per hectare only.

A report showed that in three suburb districts of HCM City, including Cu Chi, Binh Chanh and Hoc Mon alone, more than 2,000 hectares of agricultural land have been left fallow due to pollution.

The eight major canals which provide water to serve irrigation to thousands of hectares of agricultural land in Binh Chanh and Hoc Mon districts all have been seriously polluted.

The HCM City Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has found, after analyzing the water quality of the Thay Cai – An Ha, B and C Canals, that the COD, BOD5 and Coliform indexes are all dozens of times higher than the permitted levels.

Dan Viet