The project is named ‘Sustainable Development of One Million Hectares of Hi-quality and Low-emission Rice Cultivation in Association with Green Growth in the Mekong Delta until 2030’.
Can Tho City and the provinces of Tra Vinh, Soc Trang, Kien Giang, and Dong Thap are the five localities chosen to pilot this important project before wide implementation in the whole Mekong Delta region. All participating paddies have the sowing step mechanized, the fertilizer application calculated to increase effectiveness and yield while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
In particular, these fields use certified rice seeds, alternate wet and dry water management, have the row sowing and fertilizer burying tasks done by machines, reduce fertilizer application to twice per crop, have straw collected for organic fertilizer or material to grow mushroom. These steps help to form good habits for sustainable rice growing with high output.
Vice Chairman Nguyen Ngoc He of the Can Tho City People’s Committee shared that his city commits to fulfilling all goals of the project so that by 2025, Can Tho City will have owned a hi-quality rice cultivation area of 38,000ha and turning to 50,000ha in the 2026-2030 period. This would answer the desire of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to have the first ‘emission-reduction’ rice product in Vietnam after three months.
In December 2023, after the launching ceremony for this project, farmers in Hau Giang Province sowed the first rice seeds for the model of ‘Cultivating Smart, Low-emission Rice for Green Growth in the Mekong Delta Region’. Until now, 10ha of paddies under this model have appeared, saving about 60kg of rice seeds per ha compared to conventional sowing techniques.
The step of burying fertilizer simultaneously with seed sowing helps the plant grow strongly right at the beginning, greatly saving fertilizer amounts by 30 percent as opposed to traditional ways. The positive results of this model would become an important foundation for the widespread in the whole Mekong Delta region to achieve the mentioned project.
As Vietnam is the first in the world to carry out this project, the World Bank has promised to buy 5 – 10 percent of the carbon credits produced by the project (worth millions of USD). Meanwhile, rice experts have high hope for the success of this project since it can concurrently address the three issues of increasing rice yield, raising earnings for farmers, as well as coping with and lessening climate change.
Implementing this project means having income from selling not only rice but also carbon credits, which is quite new and lucrative to farmers in the Mekong Delta region.
