Over the years, the rice industry has made significant contributions to ensuring national food security and stabilizing farmers' lives. However, the development of the rice industry is facing challenges due to low economic efficiency, intensive use of land and water resources, environmental pollution, and impacts on climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions. Rice industry is a major contributor to methane emissions that cause the greenhouse effect. At the COP26, the Prime Minister of Vietnam together with more than 100 countries signed a commitment to reduce methane emissions. Reducing methane emissions from rice industry is considered as the focus point of the greenhouse gas reduction action plan.
To realize the commitment at COP26, many policies and projects have been introduced to encourage rice enterprises to apply greenhouse gas emission reduction techniques. Of these projects, lecturers and researchers from Faculty of Economics and Rural Development of VNUA involved in the one called “Vietnam Emissions Reduction Challenge Project” that was conducted in Thai Binh province from 2017 to 2022. During the project, we were impressed by An Dinh Company's rice production techniques, and this technical package was also highly appreciated by the sponsors.
A male farmer is transplanting based on the low-density technique
An Dinh Technology Development and Investment Co. Ltd. is the largest producer, trader and exporter of high-quality rice products in northern Vietnam. The core business philosophy of An Dinh is to supply high-quality rice with a clean agricultural process, well-controlled use of fertilizers and irrigation water and without harmful pesticides. In 2017, An Dinh initiated a new rice-farming method to reduce GHG emissions and improve yields in Dong Xuyen commune, Tien Hai district, Thai Binh province. The method comprises optimized scheduling of required inputs and activities to grow the DS1 rice variety, and includes specific requirements for planting density, flooding and draining, fertilizer use, and rice stubble and straw residue management. The adoption of these emission-reducing farming practices resulted in:
• an increase in rice yield of 15–20%
• an increase in rice revenue for the rice farmers by 7%
• a reduction of GHG emission by 60%
• a reduction of fertilizer uses by 40% (by volume) and 3% by cost.
Farmers use machine to harvest rice for An Dinh
From a small pilot area of 0.2 ha cultivated in 2017, these practices are now being widely adopted across 2500 ha in Thai Binh and other provinces of Vietnam with the participation of more than 6000 rice farming households. An Dinh won the second prize worth USD 400,000 in the Vietnam Emissions Reduction Challenge Project in 2021 for performance relating to yield increases, GHG reduction, and uptake and replicated technology use by farmers. The story of An Dinh Company is a great lesson in transforming green and sustainable production methods.
Prepared by Nguyen Thi Hai Ninh, Faculty of Economics and Rural Development