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Vietnam has reconsidered methane-emitting rice in the midst of a climate crisis Agriculture News

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Mekong Delta, Vietnam – At the UN COP26 summit in Scotland, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh agreed with 109 countries to commit to a 30% reduction in methane emissions by 2030.

To meet the commitment, the Southeast Asian nation will have to look at rice – one of the country’s main exports and staple food – but also the second largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions after beef.

The core of Vietnam’s rice production is in the country’s so-called “rice bowl” in the Mekong Delta region of the country. More than 50 per cent of the country’s total rice and 95 per cent of its exports are grown here, in an area about the size of the Netherlands.

But Mekong’s rice farming faces a double challenge: in addition to the crop being a source of emissions, rising sea levels linked to climate change, as well as man-made factors, the grain is becoming increasingly difficult to grow in the lowlands. region.

Tran Dung Nhan grew up on a rice farm in Tra Vinh province, on the southern coast of the Mekong Delta.

Droughts, floods, rising sea levels and the influx of fresh water needed for its rice have eaten away at the meager incomes it once had.

The family farm produced three harvests a year. Now, they are also struggling to produce one, and even then, the yield is unpredictable.

“I can clearly see the effects of climate change on our areas. The water is getting saltier, our land is drier and more barren, ”the 31-year-old told Al Jazeera. “Life here in the Mekong Delta, especially on the coast, is very hard and it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Rice is a staple food for Vietnamese people and is also a major export, but it also contributes to emissions that are fueling the climate crisis. [Govi Snell/Al Jazeera]

Distinguished from other grains, the rice grows in a field overflowing.

Since water is stagnant on the surface, there is no air exchange between the soil and the atmosphere, which means that the bacteria that produce methane can continue to grow.

When released into the air, the gas is 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide to trap heat in the atmosphere.

Bjoern Ole Sander, a representative of the International Institute for Rice Research in Vietnam, says rice crops contribute significantly to methane emissions worldwide. In Vietnam, the amount of gas released from agriculture is even higher than the world average.

“Worldwide, it’s about 1.3 percent of all human-generated greenhouse gas emissions, which seems small, but all civilian aircraft emissions are about 2 percent,” he said. “It comes from 15 percent of all greenhouse gases produced by Vietnam, so it is a significant source and has certainly been recognized in subsequent mitigation programs.”

It’s no longer “rice first”

At the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, the newly united country was one of the poorest in the world and food was scarce.

A series of economic reforms known as Doi Moi and government-led “rice first” policies launched rice cultivation, increasing incomes. By 2020, Vietnam was the world’s second-largest rice exporter, sending 3.9 million tonnes abroad last year.

But as the Mekong region moves away from intensive rice cultivation, it is not yet known how it will affect farmers themselves.

Like the Nhans, many are already suffering from the deterioration of the Mekong environment.

Farmers in the Mekong Delta have been increasingly affected by droughts and floods as seawater enters more and more of the lower region. [File: Kham/Reuters]

Dang Kieu Nhan, director of the Mekong Delta Development Research Unit at Can Tho University, said farmers have been affected by the region’s unstable weather.

“El Niños has occurred more frequently and more severely in recent years,” he said, referring to the climate pattern caused by the drought in the eastern Pacific Ocean in Southeast Asia. “There were two cases in 2016 and 2020 that caused extreme droughts and side effects … The lower the Mekong River reaches and the higher the sea level, the more salt intrusion goes inland in the Mekong Delta.”

The 2020 drought brought a record level of salt intrusion.

Approximately 33,000 acres (81,545 acres) were damaged by rice during the drought and 70,000 households did not have enough water to grow rice or meet their daily needs.

Environmental pressure has prompted the Vietnamese government to develop alternatives to the “rice first” policy, and is now encouraging people to grow fruit or set up fish and seafood farms.

By 2030, the government expects the size of the Delta’s arable rice land to be reduced by 300,000 hectares (741,315 acres), 20 percent less than the 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) planted this year.

“Referring to the Mekong Delta at first, people would have thought of rice at first, but not now,” Nhan said. “Government policy has changed tremendously since 2017, and we can’t take it as rice [being] first of all”.

Limited opportunities for farmers

Although the government’s priorities are changing, Bernard Kervyn, director of the charity Mekong Plus, says rice farmers have limited opportunities and a precarious future.

“The outlook for the Mekong Delta is not good. People say it could be a flood in 20 or 30 years and it’s not suitable for people to live there, ”Al Jazeera said. “It’s a shared responsibility, but of course there aren’t many alternative options for farmers. They find it hard to agree that we will grow less intensively, we will grow less crops; How can they do that? ”

On the ground, researchers and farmers are experimenting with new production techniques to meet environmental challenges and reduce crop emissions.

Researchers are experimenting with new production techniques that would mitigate the climate effects of the crop [File: Kham/Reuters]

Sander of the Rice Research Institute says a particularly attractive mitigation technique is an alternative method of wetting and drying. If done correctly, it reduces methane-producing bacteria by about 50 percent. In addition, it has the added benefit of reducing the amount of water needed without affecting benefits.

To apply the technique, farmers allow the water level to drop between 10 and 15 centimeters (4 to 6 inches) from the surface. After the water level drops, the soil can be irrigated again and the fields alternate between wet and dry cycles.

“You can halve methane emissions … If you remove that layer of water, you allow air exchange between the soil and the atmosphere, then the methane oxidizes and the bacteria don’t grow anymore and the methane emissions are greatly reduced,” Sander said. he said.

Financial support is needed

According to Vietnam’s nationally determined contribution to the Paris Climate Agreement, the country intends to use a wetland and drying alternative to 700,000 hectares (1.7 million acres) of rice land nationwide.

Although effective in reducing methane, the system will not work for all farmers. For those at the bottom of the Mekong, where salt water intrusion is of greatest concern, rice needs an important supply of fresh water to keep salinity away.

Nhan of Can Tho University says more needs to be done to help farmers implement the new technique effectively.

“Doing so requires greater intervention from local agricultural agencies and the government to organize farmers, connect farmers with services and build more irrigation infrastructure,” he said.

Another aspect of Vietnam’s rice reduction strategy is encouraging farmers to develop other food sources such as seafood. But although some farmers have seen their rice crops damaged by intrusions, they see that the water source is still not salty enough for aquaculture.

In the Giang Mekong Delta province, 64-year-old farmer Ut Khuong says that although rice growing has become unpredictable due to the salt water, he cannot plant prawns.

“The salt level in the field changes every year and you can’t predict … We can’t have a shrimp farm here because the water isn’t quite salty,” he told Al Jazeera. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know yet what jobs we’re going to switch to.”

To help farmers cope with the complex consequences of climate change and human causes that are ruining the Mekong environment, Nhan says more money and a holistic approach are needed.

Rice farmers are also being encouraged to get involved in aquaculture, growing shrimp and shrimp in increasingly salty waters. [File: Julian Abram Wainwright/EPA]

He noted a recent initiative in An Giang province, where the Australian government has provided $ 650 million for sustainable economic development projects in Mekong province.

The money was used to build reservoirs, irrigate and transport infrastructure, promote cooperation between farmers, promote other economic activities and improve sectors such as health and education. While such a multifaceted solution is costly, Nhan believes that such initiatives are needed more in the Mekong Delta.

“Compared to other regions in Vietnam, the locals have a very big role to play in what the government put into producing food for the people of Vietnam,” he said.

Fighting at the forefront of climate change, farmers themselves would be welcome to help.

“Being a farmer is hard work that requires knowledge, experience and patience, as well as a desire to keep updating new planting methods and techniques,” farmer Ong Ba Muoi told Al Jazeera. “I hope the government will help more of our farmers in agricultural production as well.”



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