Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Hoang Hiep said that in 2019-2020 can confirm the historical and largest salinity drought in the Mekong Delta. In the monitoring data, hydrological measurements have 3 very important characteristics.

Firstly, the salinity drought 2019-2020 comes a month earlier than the same period in many years. Since the end of November 2019, there has been a salinity limit. The second is salty in very deep. Third, the salinity retreated very slowly, forecasting until the end of May to end.

According to Mr. Hiep, these are very strange and unusual characteristics. The industry has been proactive, very accurate and early forecast. Since September 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and localities have implemented activities to prevent and combat saline drought, so the damage is reduced to the lowest level. Only about 60,000 hectares of rice have a yield reduction of 30-70%. Fruit trees were not affected, only in Cho Lach (Ben Tre) about 1.7ha of fruit trees were flooded but farmers combined to convert to other crops.