GM Maize Additional Solution to Help Farmers Improve their Income

The annual area of ​​agricultural production in Thai Nguyen province is 92,141 ha, of which maize area is 20,144 ha. During the cultivation, borer and weed are factors limiting crop productivity. Measures of farmer to manage stem borers and weeds are still manual, costly and ineffective. Therefore, since introduction, transgenic insect resistant and glyphosate herbicide tolerance maize varieties were quickly accepted in local production. Up to now, the area of ​​transgenic maize has accounted for about 10% of the total annual maize area and tends to increase in the coming years.

The average yield of NK4300 Bt /GT transgenic maize reached 7,582kg / ha while the NK4300 maize variety was only 6,580 kg / ha. More importantly, the application of transgenic maize has helped reduce labor and weeding costs, contributing to boosting productivity and maize production in the region to meet the demand for commercial maize for domestic animal feed production, contributing to reducing dependence on foreign imports.

During the period 1995-2005, thanks to the application of new hybrid maize varieties and expanding areas, Vietnamese maize farming had spectacular growth when total production increased from more than 1 million tons / year to more than 4 million. tons / year. However, the increase in production of less than 5% in recent years has shown that traditional hybrids have reached the critical level of productivity. Meanwhile, although the domestic production of maize has increased but still cannot meet the domestic demand, maize has always been one of the most imported agricultural products into Vietnam in the last 10 years. With the current area of ​​cultivated land, the application of new generation maize varieties to help preserve productivity and raise income will be an important solution for farmers to continue to choose maize as a key crop.

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