Natural reasons restricting the development of mechanized agricultural production in Mekong plain

The river network is dense and the plot is small; Paddy field operation is not conducive to large-scale mechanized operation.

Characteristics of agriculture in monsoon paddy fields

Features:

(1) Small-scale agriculture. Rice production is based on the family. Due to the shortage of arable land per capita, there are few fields cultivated by each household, and the area of rice planted by each household in southern China is generally less than 1 hectare.

(2) The output per unit area is high, but the commodity rate is low. Farmers intensively cultivate in the fields, so the yield per unit area of rice is very high. However, due to the small scale of production, the total output of rice per household is not large. Due to the restriction of traditional ideas and economic level, farmers keep a considerable part of the collected rice for their own use, and the rice sent to the market is limited.

(3) The level of mechanization and technology is relatively low. Farmers generally engage in manual labor. Although irrigation and threshing with electricity have developed rapidly in the past two decades, and the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has gradually increased, the level of mechanization and science and technology is still relatively low in general; Except Japan, the mechanization level of rice production in other Asian countries is still very low.

(4) The scale of water conservancy projects is large. Irrigation is the basis of rice production. Frequent floods and droughts in monsoon region pose a great threat to rice production. Small farmers are unable to build water conservancy projects, so they need the government's strong investment and organization to build water conservancy projects.