COVID-19: Caritas helps poor ethnic minority farmers in Phan Thièt
Vietnam is going through the fourth wave of the pandemic. Caritas is providing economic aid as well as cultural, educational and health support. Chemical fertilisers have caused great havoc. The Catholic charity is helping local farmers move towards sustainable agriculture.
Phan Thièt (AsiaNews) – Caritas has handed out food and provided long-term support to poor farmers from ethnic minorities in the Diocese of Phan Thièt, an area badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The initiative was undertaken in cooperation with Misereor, the German Catholic Bishops’ Organisation for Development Cooperation.
So far, the fourth wave of infections has affected 26 Vietnamese provinces. Since the pandemic broke out between late 2019 and early 2020, Vietnam has reported more than 4,200 cases, with 37 deaths. Over the past week, an average 114 cases have been reported per day.
The farmers helped by Caritas are for the most part ethnic K'Ho and Gia Rai and live in the villages of Suèi Máu, Tân Quang, and Bon Thop.
Through a development project designed to help local communities, the diocese has provided economic aid as well as cultural, social, educational and health support.
The pandemic-related economic crisis has severely hurt local farmers, many of whom are now out of work.
This has compounded another problem created by the use of chemical fertilisers, which, through their extensive use, have badly impacted the land itself as well as the health of local residents, many of whom now have cancer.
The degradation has driven many young people away from farming and affected local cultural traditions.
In order to reverse this, Caritas has launched a programme in Phan Thièt to help farmers turn to “sustainable” agriculture, so that they can produce healthy food in a way that respects the environment.
Local farmers are often forced to borrow to do their work. At a workshop organised by Caritas in late April, one of them said that his debts continue to grow, and that his family is unable to repay them.
Still, this year he plans change his way of farming. “We will no longer use fertilisers because they are too dangerous. I personally don’t have the courage to eat the food I grow with chemical products.”
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06/04/2021 17:02
22/02/2018 13:29
