The workshop on ‘Circular Economy Development in Rice Production and Processing’ took place in Can Tho City with the witness of Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran Thanh Nam and Ms. Yvonne Pinto, Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
According to Deputy Minister Tran Thanh Nam, Vietnam is one of the world's leading rice producers. The country annually produces over 43 million tons of rice, mainly from the Mekong Delta – the country’s rice basket. The Mekong Delta produces about 24 million tons per year ensuring national food security and helping to turn Vietnam into one of the leading rice exporters in the international market.
The Vietnamese rice sector has received significant support from IRRI. To date, the majority of Vietnam's rice varieties have been developed from IRRI's research results, including around 25 IRRI-branded rice varieties that have been transferred. Therefore, Deputy Minister Nam expected IRRI’s continued support for Vietnam in developing high-quality rice standards associated with low-emission rice branding. He also hoped that IRRI would share research results on gene sources to develop rice varieties that can adapt to salinity, reduce emissions, and have low glycemic index.
IRRI Director General Yvonne Pinto pledged to strengthen cooperation between IRRI and Vietnam in the coming time. As Vietnam's implementation of the One Million Hectare of High-Quality Rice Project has attracted the attention of many countries around the world, IRRI is developing a number of digital tools and is ready to share them with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
At the workshop, participants pointed out the long-standing issues in localities in the Mekong Delta. Localities are still primarily focused on economic goals and food security, with less attention to emission reduction. Aside from that, provinces in the region lack mechanisms to promote and motivate farmers to produce low-emission rice and they have had no policies of emission reduction to make breakthroughs.
According to Deputy Director General Le Thanh Tung of the Department of Crop Production, the goal of the One Million Hectare of High-Quality Rice Project is to collect all rice straw from the fields by 2030 and process it according to the principles of circular agriculture. In the immediate future, it is necessary to develop a database and information on technologies supporting circular agriculture for rice (specifically, by region, specialization, and economy-technology-environment).
Provinces in the region need to develop blueprints and proposals while strengthening their capacity to develop production models for rice straw management in the orientation of circular agriculture.
