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PART 1: ORIGIN AND ADVANTAGES OF FLOATING RICE
🌾 Floating rice, also known as broadcast rice, is a unique rice variety of the Mekong Delta, closely tied to the annual flood season from July to October in the lunar calendar. Before its introduction, farmers in the Southwest mainly practiced traditional transplanting, but during flood season the fields were often submerged 1.5–4.5 meters, leading to frequent crop losses.
🚤 A historical turning point came when Phan Văn Vàng, a Cai cơ of the Nguyễn Dynasty in An Giang, had the opportunity to learn about deep-flood-tolerant rice cultivation during a trip with a French hydrology specialist in Cambodia. There, he observed a remarkable rice variety: as the water rose, the rice stalks grew taller accordingly.
Realizing this could solve the food shortages in the upstream floodplain, in 1891 he brought back two varieties — Nàng Đùm and Nàng Phược — and sowed them in Phước Hưng, Hà Bao, Châu Phú… The results exceeded expectations, prompting the Chief of Châu Đốc Province to encourage farmers across the region to adopt this model, helping stabilize production and boost the local economy.
🌱 Outstanding advantages of floating rice:
🌾 Adapts to floodwaters: seeds are simply broadcast onto the field; the rice grows and elongates with rising water, reaching heights of 5–7 meters
🌾 Requires no chemical fertilizers or pesticides, thriving solely on floodwater and silt
🌾 Produces very “clean” rice grains rich in nutrients, especially vitamin B1 and vitamin E
🌾 Helps preserve the floodplain ecosystem — an important habitat for diverse native aquatic species
💛 Thanks to this extraordinary adaptability, farmers were no longer fearful of losing their crops to floods. By 1930, floating rice in An Giang had expanded to 137,000 hectares, becoming a key agricultural strength of the province and supporting livelihoods throughout the flood-prone region.
Source: Compiled
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