A farming cooperative in Ninh Binh, Vietnam, has raised rice yields by 28% with seeders that sow and place fertiliser in one pass, and feeds its potato crop with rice straw composted by machine. Seventeen researchers from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal and the Philippines visited it on 1 October during a regional workshop on roots and tubers organised by the International Potato Center (CIP).
Nam Cuong Agricultural Production, Business, and Service Cooperative brings together about 1,600 farming households on around 300 hectares, 130 of them under potatoes. Its rotation runs a four-month nitrogen-fixing peanut crop, a three-month rice crop that supplies straw for compost, and a three-month potato crop, the main earner. Potatoes net about USD 4,750 a hectare against USD 2,222 for peanuts; rice is grown mainly for home use.
IRRI scientist Dr Ngo Duc The explained the rice method, mechanised direct-seeded rice with fertiliser deep placement (mDSR-FDP), an alternative to machine transplanting. Air-assisted seeders place the seed 1-2 millimetres below the surface and the fertiliser 3-4 centimetres deep, which improves nutrient uptake and root health and reduces lodging. At Nam Cuong the system lifted yield to 5.65 tonnes a hectare at 14% moisture and turned a loss of VND 3.1 million a hectare under traditional practice into a profit of VND 13.2 million.
Straw composting has been mechanised too. Machine turning combined with biochemical processes cuts decomposition from 90 days to 45 and improves compost quality, provided the heap is mixed regularly, probiotics are added and temperature and pH are watched. The compost goes into potato production under a precision nutrient model built with CIP, IRRI, the CGIAR Scaling for Impact programme and the USDA-funded Fertilize Right project, and the cooperative aims to supply safe, organic produce to feeding programmes in 20 local schools.
Table potatoes are planted in late October or early November and harvested in January for the domestic market and for export to Cambodia and Laos; a spring seed crop follows from January to March. Seed is kept in seven community cold stores of 40-70 tonnes each with no reported losses, and the cooperative now imports yellow-fleshed European varieties from Germany, having earlier bought from the Netherlands. Cooperative director Nguyen Van Du said rice-potato and rice-potato-peanut rotations are its main defence against pests and diseases.
The visit is part of the Asia Regional Learning Platform on Roots and Tubers, set up through the CGIAR Capacity Sharing Accelerator; its first phase runs from August 2026 to April 2027 so that national research bodies, Bangladesh's among them, can adapt such practices at home.
Photo: IRRI Vietnam
Source: CGIAR
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