Songkhone district prepares for rainy season crops

(KPL) Songkhone district, central province of Savannakhet, is getting ready for the rainy season crops. According to the local source, the district aims to plant cash crops on 1,000 ha. The principal crops will be corn, soyabean, mungbean, tobacco, taro and a few others.
In their preparation, the district and village administration have closely co-ordinated and looking for appropriate means to carry out the job. Water pumps have been purchased, irrigation canals have been repaired and some land area have been cleared.
During the last main rice planting season, Songkhone district lost some 1,800ha of rice due to flooding and related problems. The areas cultivated with rice totaled to some 19,300ha.
In Nong district also in Savannakhet, of the 867 ha of land planted with rice, 85ha suffered from lack of rain water and pest. Of the 1,200 ha of rice fields on high ground, 81 ha were ravaged by pest, particularly rodents.
Advertisement as a key in response to bird flu spread

(KPL) A meeting on materialising advertisements on birth flu prevention and control took place in Vientiane Capital, 21 July to review and solve gaps involving to behaviours of target groups and provision of sanitary advertisement.
The meeting was chaired by Dr Bounkouang Phichit, Deputy Minister of Public Health who is also Deputy Head of National Secretariat for Communicable Control, where drew Head of National Avian and Human Influenza Coordination Office (NAHICO), country representative of UN in Laos and other high-ranking officials.
The participants have discussed on a new plan, an affective way for disseminating information on bird flu prevention, a strategic plan and action plan. All activities were aimed at disseminating other advertisements of bird flu prevention in target group in order to respond to the birth flu outbreak in the future.