Solutions for Winter Crop Development in Quynh Phu District, Thai Binh Province

Quynh Phu district of Thai Binh province is an agriculture-based district with long tradition of intensive rice farming and winter crops cultivation. Winter season has become one of the main cropping seasons of the district. In 2013, winter crop cultivated area in Quynh Phu was 6,456 hectares, increased by 3.46% in comparison with the figure in 2011. The winter cropping pattern is diversified with various high value crops, resulting in an increase in its annual production value of hundreds of billions VND (VND650 billio in 2013). During 2011- 2013, production value of winter chilies was up to VND25 million/sao at the constant price, followed by bittergourd, sweet corn, baby corn, cucumber, potato, kohlrabi, tomato, wax gourd, and pumpkin. In order to further develop winter production in Quynh Phu district towards higher production efficiency, the paper concentrates on three main objectives : (i) to evaluate results of the winter crop production; (ii) to investigate the factors affecting winter crop development in the district; and (iii) to propose feasible solutions to promote winter crop production in the next years towards high economic efficiency.