Only a 30 minute motorbike ride from the center of Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Thanh District’s Ward 28 in the Thanh Da peninsula offers a different look at an inner city due to its rural appearance.

The small road leading to Ward 28 separates it from the nearby crowd of cafes, restaurants, hotels, and resorts.

For people who desire a breath of fresh air away from the city, a visit to the paddy fields in Ward 28 is ideal.

The area has been supported by rice farming for nearly a hundred years, an occupation locals grew up with and will continue to do until the day they cannot walk in the fields any longer.

The beauty of the golden paddy fields, riverbanks, lotus ponds, and white storks found in the area have become an inspiration for artists, attracting several filmmakers.

Western photographers have also come to take photos of the beautiful typical Vietnamese countryside found within one of the most crowded and modern cities in the country.

If visiting during a harvest, tourists may get the chance to have a hands-on farming experience thanks to the friendly local farmers who are willing to show visitors how to cut rice, offer guests cups of tea or coffee, and share amusing stories.

Nguyen Kim Hoang, a local farmer, told Tuoitrenews that locals usually start to clean their fields every March and grow rice for the summer and fall harvest at the beginning of April of the lunar calendar.

The remaining crop will be prepared so that they can harvest right before Tet, Vietnam’s Lunar New Year.

Previously, Ward 28 was made up of 40 households, which have recently increased to 50. Eighty percent of the households farm and breed animals.

On the decrease

However, in recent years, rice production in the area has been decreasing due to poor weather and pests.

Moreover, older farmers in the area are becoming the last paddy growers in the Thanh Da peninsula since younger generations have shown no interest in the job, as it offers an unstable income and is being replaced by jobs more suitable for the era of modernization, industrialization, and urbanization.

“My children have their own jobs, only I work in the fields until I can no longer do the job. They can sell the farms if they want,” Huynh Cong Ut, 60, said.

Sau Phuoc, another farmer in the area, said she harvested around 1 ton in the highest yield in the past but this year she produced only 110kg due to her old age and poor health.

“My children work for industrial parks, I’m the only one who harvests this field,” she shared. “I also hire people to harvest my field but the amount of rice this year is too small, so I’m keeping it for my family to use,” she added.

"My family has a tradition of farming; I have worked as a farmer since the age of 16."

Even worse, the ward has been listed in the city’s urban planning project for the past ten years.

To many farmers in the Thanh Da peninsula, this land is not only a place to live, it is also their neighborhood and a part of their life.

Many of them have expressed their worry that one day they will have to leave the land and move to modern and expensive condominiums when the planning project is implemented.

“According to the plan, we have to move to condominiums when they begin carrying out the project, but we won’t be able to afford the monthly fee,” farmer Nguyen Kim Hoang said.