LONG AN, Vietnam. There is one thing that distinguishes the 60-year-old Vo Van Van rice fields from a patchwork of thousands of other emerald fields in Long An province in southern Vietnam’s Mekong Delta: they don’t They are completely flooded.
That and the giant drone, with an eagle-like wingspan, chugging overhead as organic fertilizer rains down on knee-high rice seedlings.
Using less water and using a drone to fertilize are new techniques Van is testing and Vietnam hopes will help resolve a paradox at the heart of rice farming: this delicate crop is not only vulnerable to climate change but also contributes uniquely him.
Rice should be grown separately from other crops and seedlings planted individually in flooded fields; A grueling and dirty job that requires a lot of labor and water that generates a large amount of methane, a powerful planet-warming gas that can trap more than 80 times more heat in the atmosphere in the short term than carbon dioxide. .
It is a problem unique to rice cultivation, as flooded fields prevent oxygen from entering the soil, creating the conditions for methane-producing bacteria. Rice fields contribute 8% of all man-made methane to the atmosphere, according to a 2023 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Vietnam is the third largest exporter of rice in the world and the basic importance to Vietnamese culture is palpable in the Mekong Delta. The fertile patchwork of green fields crisscrossed by silvery waterways has helped stave off famine since the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Rice is not only a mainstay of most meals, it is considered a gift. of the gods and continues to be venerated.
It is molded into noodles and sheets and fermented into wine. In busy markets, motorcyclists carry 10-kilogram (22-pound) bags home. Barges transport mountains of grain down the Mekong River. The rice grains are then dried and hulled by machines before being packaged for sale in factories, lined from floor to ceiling with rice sacks.
Van has been working with one of Vietnam’s largest rice exporters, Loc Troi Group, for the past two years and is using a different irrigation method known as alternative wetting and drying, or AWD. This requires less water than traditional agriculture, since its rice fields are not continually submerged. They also produce less methane.
Using the drone to fertilize crops saves labor costs. As climate crises cause a migration to cities, Van said it is harder to find people to work on farms. He also ensures that precise amounts of fertilizers are applied. Too much fertilizer causes the soil to release nitrogen gases that warm the Earth.
Once the crops are harvested, Van no longer burns rice stubble, a major cause of air pollution in Vietnam and its neighbors, as well as in Thailand and India. Instead, the Loc Troi Group collects it to sell to other companies that use it as livestock feed and to grow straw mushrooms, a popular addition to stir-fries.
Van benefits in several ways. Your costs have gone down while your farm’s performance is the same. Using organic fertilizers allows it to sell in European markets where customers are willing to pay more for organic rice. Best of all, you have time to tend your own garden.
“I am growing jackfruit and coconut,” he said.
Loc Troi Group CEO Nguyen Duy Thuan said such methods allow farmers to use 40% less rice seeds and 30% less water. Pesticide, fertilizer and labor costs are also lower. Thuan said Loc Troi, which exports to more than 40 countries including Europe, Africa, the United States and Japan, is working with farmers to expand the area cultivated using its methods from the current 100 hectares to 300,000 hectares.
That’s a far cry from Vietnam’s goal of growing “high-quality, low-emission rice” on 1 million hectares of agricultural land, an area more than six times the size of London, by 2030. Vietnamese officials estimate that would reduce emissions. production costs by a fifth. and increase farmers’ profits by more than $600 million, according to state media Vietnam News.
Vietnam recognized from the beginning that it had to reconfigure its rice sector. It was the largest rice exporter, ahead of India and Thailand, to sign a 2021 commitment to reduce methane emissions at the annual United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
Every year, the industry suffers losses of more than $400 million, according to recent research by the Vietnam Scientific Institute of Water Resources. This is worrying, not only for the country but for the world.
The Mekong Delta, where 90% of the rice exported by Vietnam is grown, is one of the regions in the world most vulnerable to climate change. A 2022 UN climate change report warned of severe flooding in the wet season and drought in the dry season. Dozens of dams built upstream in China and Laos have reduced the river’s flow and the amount of sediment it carries downstream to the sea. Sea level is rising and making the lower reaches of the river salty. And unsustainable levels of groundwater pumping and sand extraction for construction have added to the problems.
Changing centuries-old ways of growing rice is expensive, and although methane is a more potent cause of global warming than carbon dioxide, it only receives 2% of climate finance, World Bank President Ajay Banga said at the summit. climate change meeting in Dubai last year.
Fighting methane emissions is “a rare and clear area” where low-cost, effective and replicable solutions exist, Banga said. The World Bank is supporting Vietnam’s efforts and has begun helping the Indonesian government expand climate resilient agriculture as part of more than a dozen methane reduction projects around the world.
The hope is that more countries will follow in their footsteps, although there is no “one size fits all,” said Lewis H. Ziska, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University. “The only thing in common is that you need water,” he said, adding that different planting and irrigation methods can help better manage water.
Growing more genetically diverse rice varieties would also help because some are more resistant to excess heat or require less water, while others might even emit less methane, he said.
Nguyen Van Nhut, director of rice export company Hoang Minh Nhat, said his suppliers are using rice varieties that can thrive even in salty water and extreme heat.
Now, the company is adapting to unseasonal rains that make it difficult to dry rice, increasing the risks of mold or insect damage. Normally, rice is dried in the sun immediately after harvesting, but Nhut said his company has drying facilities at its packing factory and will also install machinery to dry the grains closer to the fields.
“We don’t know what month the rainy season is, like we knew before,” he said.
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