New Rice Varieties Bring More Options to Vietnam’s Mekong Delta

4 September 2026

Called Vietnam's ‘rice bowl’, the Mekong Delta is considered one of the most well-known and productive rice-growing regions in Southeast Asia. Today, farmers in the Delta have two new rice varieties approved for cultivation, thanks to support from the Crop Trust’s BOLD project.

Highlighted on Vietnam.vn, Nông Dân 1 and 2 were developed by Can Tho University using diversity from traditional and wild rice. These varieties draw on crop diversity held in genebanks to give farmers more options as growing conditions change. 

The Crop Trust has also trained 171 farmers in rice breeding and involved 243 farmers in field trials. Their participation helps ensure that promising new varieties are tested against farmers’ needs and real growing conditions. Nong Dan 1 and Nong Dan 2 show what can happen when crop diversity is used to give farmers new options to adapt to changing conditions.