Among the top stories of Google News search results today for “climate change” is an article from Voice of America (VOA), claiming global warming is forcing Vietnamese farmers to abandon rice production in favor of shrimp production.
However, objective crop data reported by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) tells an entirely different story.
Rice production and yields have set new records virtually every year in Vietnam as the Earth modestly warms. Shrimp has long been among Vietnam’s largest seafood exports, and shrimp production is setting records, as well.
The VOA story, titled “Climate Change Pushes Vietnam’s Rice Growers to Farm Shrimp,” tells anecdotal stories about some former rice farmers who shifted careers to shrimp aquaculture.
“The effects of climate change are making rice-growing in her area more difficult,” says VOA. “Climate change is affecting everyone, so they have to try new things to survive.”
To the extent climate change is affecting rice production in Vietnam, data from the FAO shows it is increasing production and yields, not reducing them.
FAO data, illustrated in the FAO chart below, shows Vietnamese cereal production (of which nearly 90 percent is rice production) has set a new record for yields per acre 26 times out of the past 30 years of FAO data.
Yields have increased approximately 50 percent during the past 25 years, and have doubled since the last 1980s.
For Voice of America to publish the headline that “Climate Change Pushes Vietnam’s Rice Growers to Farm Shrimp” is objectively false and laughably preposterous.
It is true, tangentially, that more Vietnamese – including many Vietnamese farmers – are becoming shrimpers. They are not being ‘forced” or ‘pushed’ into shrimping by poor rice crops, however.
They are choosing to become shrimpers because shrimp production as temperatures modestly warm is becoming even more lucrative than lucrative rice farming.
Vietnam’s rice harvest is mostly consumed locally, but its shrimp harvest is meant primarily for the lucrative export market.
Shrimp exports bring in hard currency, so it’s not surprising some framers have abandoned lucrative rice production to harvest shrimp.
The growth in Vietnamese shrimp exports supports this observation. Data shows that from 1998 to 2017, Vietnam’s shrimp exports grew by more than 700 percent, from $453 million in 1998 to nearly $4 billion in 2017.
The sustained growth of Vietnam’s rice and shrimp production is fantastic news and a tremendous success story.
Voice of America chose to ignore this good news and instead decided to public climate activist propaganda and misinformation. Shame on this government broadcaster.
VOA’s misleading reporting undermines its mission to favorably influence public opinion about the United States, its people, and its institutions.
Read more at Climate Realism
“Massive withdrawal of groundwater resources due to population growth and rapid industrialization has led to seawater intrusion into the coastal aquifers across the globe.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589757820300123
Anthropogenic global warming would, if it were real, increase both temperature and rainfall somewhat, providing ideal conditions for rice crops. That is, more rice not less.
What we really see, if we try, is extra carbon dioxide providing better conditions for almost all plants. The greening of the Earth may be seen from space. Rice benefits from that greening.
Therefore, the answer is simple. Whether or not carbon dioxide emissions cause a minor warming is irrelevant to improved rice production. Rice production will improve anyway because carbon dioxide is a major player in plant growth.
Your comment actually shows you’re too lazy to even read. You didn’t even read the original article. If you did, you’d see that the reason why the people switched from rice farming to shrimp farming is because of saltwater intrusion. Climate change caused saltwater to intrude further inland than it did previously. And if you want one article for how that works, you can see my other comment on this post.
Rice cannot grow in saltwater no matter how much carbon dioxide you have. And yet your comment just shows you were too lazy to even read what the original article actually said. Stupid.
One of us is a horticulturist and farmer. The other calls the one who knows what he’s talking about “stupid.”
For the record, I already knew they swapped to aquaculture. They had a solution. Most problems have a solution. Anthropogenic Climate Change has no solution because it isn’t a problem.
What you don’t want to understand is that I most probably have had deeper experience than you have on the political left. I don’t need to learn from you because I know too much about your sort already.
Wow. Your entire comment here just continues to show your ignorance. YOUR first comment talks about how a warming world would no matter what increase rice productivity. Guess what? That’s WRONG. I specifically explained how that’s wrong because if we have a warming world, then sea levels rise, and saltwater intrusion kills rice.
Now you’re trying to distract from your first comment by saying herp derp, you did know they swapped to aquaculture? You still haven’t addressed the fact that YOUR comment had NOTHING to do with saltwater intrusion. Saltwater intrusion completely invalidates your first comment.
And please notice that nowhere did I actually make an argument that global warming or climate change is actually occurring. Your first comment began with a hypothetical. You said IF we accept that it is happening, then rice productivity increases. My comment is that you were too lazy to even read how that is wrong because you didn’t even address saltwater intrusion, which was in the original article. If we believe your own starting point, you are wrong.
You clearly need everything spelled out for you. I said they had a problem and found a solution. I have not once disputed the problem of salt-water intrusion here or anywhere else, just the cause, the overall economic effect and, thus, the panic. Learn to read between the lines.
You are typical of the new left in that you have no apparent understanding of economics or how juvenile you behave.
And as I said, I was already aware of this issue. I did not suddenly learn about it from this article. Therefore, my responses are not necessarily the uninformed knee-jerk reactions that you think they are.
Rice production is booming in Vietnam and prices have been high as I have said. That individuals may be suffering, especially if they can’t afford to swap to aquaculture, is unfortunate, but whether or not Australian farmers use diesel will make no difference to that suffering (other than Australian rice production influencing the rice export prices).
The price of reading y our comments and responding to you is too high. So I won’t do it again, unless you grow up. And that’s about as likely as fossil fuel use being the cause of the Mekong salinity issue.
In summary, I could have specifically mentioned saltwater intrusion rather than alluding to it, but you leave so much out of your responses when you complain it is pathetic.
You clearly need to learn to read YOUR OWN WORDS. Learn to read between the lines? You are continuing to try to cover up your failure to read. You literally didn’t read the original article that talked about saltwater intrusion. Your first comment talks about completely irrelevant things like carbon dioxide increasing rice yields. Read what YOU wrote. Read how what you wrote does not AT ALL address ANYTHING in the original article.
And now you say read between the lines because you’re too embarrassed to admit that you’re illiterate? Okay, cool. You say you were already aware of the issue? Again, your first comment shows that you were so stupidly ignorant of the issue. If you were aware, you would not talk about carbon dioxide increasing yield.
Please, explain how your very first comment demonstrates any understanding of the original article? Despite all of your posts, you still have failed to address that. You wave your hand saying herp derp, you were aware, when clearly, everything you wrote shows that you weren’t.
You accuse me of being typical of the new left? Yeah, you’re just resorting to buzzwords to try to make yourself look better because you got caught being stupid.
I just want to make this clear because you’ve demonstrated time and time again that you’re too stupid to understand. Your first comment talks about carbon dioxide increasing rice yields. That is fundamentally impossible to be true when saltwater intrusion kills the rice. So please explain how your first comment demonstrated ANY understanding of the original article.
This is stupid. It’s like the author didn’t actually read the original article at all.
Rice farming in coastal areas has been affected by climate change. Saltwater has been going further inland because of climate change. That makes rice farming THERE basically impossible. Meanwhile, improvements in land use and expansion of farms IN THE REST OF THE COUNTRY is increasing overall rice yields for the country.
This article is stupid. It’s not hard to understand that if you actually read.
Anything that is bad is automatically blamed on climate change. Can you tell me what is the mechanism by which climate change has caused saltwater intrusion? It can’t be a change in rainfall. Mean rainfall over Vietnam does not show any significant increase or decrease since 1960.
A quick Internet search shows a lot of articles on how climate change would cause saltwater intrusion. https://iwaponline.com/wst/article/77/6/1632/41155/Assessing-the-impact-of-sea-level-rise-due-to
This is an article specific to climate change and saltwater intrusion in the Mekong Delta, this specific area.
If you want to disagree on the particular details, feel free. But don’t act like it’s so hard to find. Your comment on mean rainfall just shows that you don’t even want to make a small effort to even look.
Sea levels rising from carbon dioxide emissions are eco-religious catastrophist fantasy. Some don’t want to look for that, but it’s easily found none-the-less.
So instead of citing any evidence, I’m supposed to believe you? Great logic. Ten out of ten evidence.
You literally gave zero reason to believe you. I don’t need to do a search to see that.
The Hydrographic Surveyor of NSW, Daniel Fitzhenry, said data recorded by the Bureau of Meteorology at Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour is “more accurate than satellite” on sea levels. He said the station has been and remains one of the most reliable tide and sea gauging stations in the world, due to its position next to the largest body of water on Earth, the Pacific Ocean. The BOM started mean sea level records in 1914, and the data shows them rise and fall within a range of 15 centimetres. Fitzhenry said levels are affected daily by the moon’s rotation around the earth, and the movements of the planets around the sun in elliptical orbits.
….
Historical photos of Fort Denison, when compared to very recent ones, are nothing to get hysterical over.
Of course, the land at Fort Denison may be rising at the same rate as the sea level does…
However if, as catastrophists tell us, the sea level rises are ever-increasing, the Fort Denison land rise would need to be increasing at exactly the same pace to match…
Which stretches credibility a wee bit to say the least.
I love how ignorant you continue to show yourself to be. You keep citing global averages and means and keep missing the actual details, much like this article. Imagine if an oil rig exploded and polluted the Gulf of Mexico, as has literally happened in recent history. This killed fish. If you don’t believe that, then try drinking crude oil. Also imagine that during this same time, the US had an increase in the amount of fish it caught. In fact, between 2010 and 2011, US fish catch increased by roughly 700 million metric tons.
Then this article’s author and you come in like herp derp, fish catches increased, therefore, the massive oil spill didn’t do anything bad/didn’t happen. That’s as stupid as you are. The effects of the oil spill were localized. Yes, the effects of climate change can be localized.
We even have statistics that show that land erosion in Vietnam’s deltas has increased over the years. We have statistics showing that you’re wrong. But you just don’t want to admit it.
I did know that raising sea level might be the reason given for salt water intrusion. However, it is common for people to blame things on climate change with no idea how it is supposed to be happening so my question was not out of line.
You are dead on when you criticized the article for not mentioning salt water intrusion as a reason for switching to shrimp farming. I’m very disappointed that it did not. However, the article you provided a link to has a similar failure. It tried to impress readers with partial differential equations, but it didn’t mention the 162 dams on the Mekong and its tributaries. According to National Geographic there is a big impact from 11 dams in China. Starving a river system of water is a more likely cause of salt water intrusion than current sea level increase of 1.5 – 2.0 mm/year. This is down form what was observed between 1920 – 1950 with a maximum of 2.5 mm/yr. This would still be true if the rate was three times higher as claimed by some alarmists.
The article in the link doesn’t even speak of current conditions, but is a simulation of what is expected. It uses current river flow data which is of course impacted by the dams. It uses estimates of sea level rise that are very unlikely. Between ignoring the impact of dams, and using unlikely future sea rise, the simulation joins many others that have come to incorrect conclusions.
Your comment here is fair enough to some extent. You are correct that the article I linked to is predictive and, to some extent, speculative. However, I disagree with many of your specific points. You cite nothing to say that starving a river system of water is more likely to cause saltwater intrusion than sea level rises. I would say both are very important. Specifically for Vietnam, sea level rises have been recorded at 2.8 mm per year. Yes, dams have an impact. It would be false to say that sea level rises do not ALSO have an effect.
The article I linked to does go into the effects based on projected rises. If you already accept that sea levels continue to rise, which you seem to agree with based on the recorded data, then that shows the effects.
The Voice of America? I hardly think its the real Voice of America maybe some other nations but No the voice of America. And besides the radical Eco-Freaks want Humans to go extinct anyway
I’m guessing that pound for pound shrimp is more valuable than rice?
A shrimp farm typically costs more to set up than a rice paddy does, but the returns are said to be greater, although Vietnamese rice export prices have been surging of late and are easily surpassing Indian prices by a fair margin due to quality.
I think it is something like over $500 per tonne for basic export Vietnamese rice up to $1000 per tonne for top quality rice, compared to over $4000 per tonne for Vietnamese export shrimp.
Both industries have been booming with a Vietnamese shrimp export target of $4 billion this year while Vietnamese rice exports were over $3 billion last year. The catastrophists don’t tell you this, though. They make it sound like shrimp farming is a disaster rather than an industry of equal export importance. The only real difference in overall importance would be in the domestic market due to dietary factors. Successful Vietnamese shrimp farmers still eat rice!