The annual ploughing festival of people in Trung Thanh hamlet, Pho Yen district, Thai Nguyen province (Photo: baothainguyen.vn)

Characterized by the Vietnamese wet rice civilization, the ploughing festival in Thanh Hoa hamlet in Pho Yen district, Thai Nguyen province is held on the first days of the Year of the Rat.

This year’s cultivation and ploughing testing involved 20 teams from local hamlets, requiring them to be swift-handed to plough straight furrows with strict farming techniques.

Pursuant to  Vietnamese farming lore, choosing a good day to begin ploughing a field is to ensure to have enough time for a crop.

Farmers believe starting a new crop on a good spring day, they will have a bumper harvest.

Here are some opinions of those who participated in this year’s festival in Thanh Hoa hamlet:

“I pray for a bumper crop.”

“All farmers will feel happy if they have a good crop.”

“We are glad to participate in this spring festival  and hope this year, all crops will enjoy many advantages with higher productivity than in previous years. Rice seeds will be sowed on schedule and in line with the latest farming process.”

This year, Pho Yen district’s agricultural sector began to use machines to till the land and sow seeds in a hope to free up labor and see higher productivity.

Bui Van Luong, Chairman of Pho Yen Township People’s Committee, said: “At this year’s festival, we transferred new farming techniques to farmers and encouraged them to embrace the new things to have bumper crops.”

Quang Ninh officials grow a tree at the launch ceremony of the 2020 tree planting movement. (Photo: quangninh.gov.vn)

A tree planting campaign launched by President Ho Chi Minh in the Spring of 1960 has been spread across villages and communes.  The campaign begins from the end of the last lunar month with local teams first choosing a road or canal sections for planting trees. On the fourth or the fifth day of the first lunar month, a tree-planting ceremony is officially held. 

Dinh Ngoc Chien, Deputy Chairman of the People’s Committee of Cam Pha City in Quang Ninh province, said: “Cam Pha authorities have kept up the tradition of spring tree planting. Every year after the Tet holiday, the municipal administration and the local coal sector jointly hold tree-planting ceremonies. Our activity is to protect the environment, keep the surrounding landscape clean and beautiful, and respond to President Ho Chi Minh’s appeal.”