DISSEMINATION AND REGIONAL POLICY DIALOUGE WORKSHOP ON LOW EMISSIONS AND SUSTAINABLE RICE CULTIVATION Vietnam Low Carbon Rice Project (Supported by the Australian Government) Kien Giang, 15 April 2014 81 82 SUMMARY REPORT OF THE VIETNAM LOW CARBON RICE PROJECT- VLCRP PRIMARY ACHIEVEMENTS AND RESULTS AFTER 11 CROP PRODUCTION IN AN GIANG AND KIEN GIANG PROVINCES PERIOD OF NOVEMBER 2012- DECEMBER 2014 Tran Thu Ha1, Nguyen Van Sanh2, Joseph Rudek1, Huynh Quang Tin2, Nguyen Hong Tin2, Tran Kim Tinh3, Tran Quang Cui4, Doan Ngoc Pha5, Hoang Trung Kien4, Huynh Hiep Thanh5, Richie Ahuja1 ABSTRACT The Vietnam Low Carbon Rice Project - VLCRP is a pioneering community-based low carbon rice farming project that creates the practical and measurable changes for the rice production in the Mekong Delta. These changes have been documented through their on-farm research and intervention activities for 11 crops in Phu Thuong Co-op, Phu Tan district of An Giang province and Kenh 7b Co-op, Tan Hiep district of Kien Giang province. With the Participatory Technical Development approach, the VLCRP’s low carbon rice farming protocol namely 1Must 6 Reductions (1M6R) has been piloted, and more than 500 farmer households have been trained to cultivate rice on an area of 540 hectares, for 3 crops per year. Over the two communities were VLCRP has worked, rice farmers that have adopted 1M6R have reduced their seed density by 50%, fertilizer by 30-40%, water irrigation by 40-50%, pesticide by 30%, and labor costs by 20% while increasing their yield from 5-10% resulting in an increase their net profit by 10% to as much as 60%. The project also has implemented its community development package with affirmative gender and women empowerment activities targeting the improvement of women’s livelihood, market linkages and rice value chain improvements. All crop results were communicated with local governments at the commune, district and province as well as policy makers at national level to support policy changes. The scientific data are presented in 3 research reports which accompany this Summary Report. 1. Background context Vietnam has a largely agriculturally based economy, ranked 2nd for rice export, providing 16% of the total rice export commodity (FAO, 2008). The Mekong Delta (MD) is the country’s main rice bowl with approximately 3.9 million hectare of cultivation areas; in which about 1.85 million hectares are in rice cultivation. In 2013, MD rice export reached 25 million tons which accounted for approximately 77% of the total rice production of Vietnam and contributed 90% of Vietnam’s rice export (GSO, 2014). The rice production sector is the main livelihood for more than 70% of rural populations and contributes substantially to the export 1 Environmental Defense Fund 2 Mekong Research Development Institute, Can Tho University 3 Advanced Laboratory, Can Tho University 4 Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Kien Giang province 5 Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, An Giang province 83 turnover and the GDP. Vietnam’s agricultural strategic development plans for 2030 recognizes the MD as the strategic area for ensuring the national food security. In recent years, the rice production and livelihood of rice farmers has been facing numerous challenges. Rice prices have dropped while input costs have increased. It has been estimated that more than 1,140,000 farmer households’ livelihood are threatening due to the very low income from agriculture. Rice farmers have overused fertilizer and other inputs by approximately 30% and face adverse weather conditions including drought, flooding, salinity increases and soil erosion. Other problems include limited knowledge and poor farming techniques, increased soil pollution, and small-scale production with little or no linkage to the market. The mandates to increase the income of farmers and foster rural development are major targets of the Vietnamese Government. These mandates are driving the national policy framework for restructuring and modernizing Vietnam’s Agriculture, and achieving sustainable rural development. Given this context, applied research and wide-scale application of an advanced rice farming technique is needed to increase economic effectiveness while reducing the negative environmental impacts. 2. Objectives, project size and location of the VLCRP With the support of the Australian Government under the Community-based Climate Change Action Grants, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) collaborated with the Mekong Research Development Institute (MDI) and the Advanced Laboratory of Can Tho University; the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of An Giang and Kien Giang and their Extension Centers to pilot the community-based project entitled “Vietnam Low Carbon Rice Project – VLCRP” during the period of 2012 – 2014. This pilot project was designed to achieve the 3 main objectives: 1. Improve community livelihoods by training small-holder rice farmers in agricultural practices that decrease production costs, maintain or improve yields, provide environmental co-benefits, and create additional income streams from sales of carbon credits. 2. Demonstrate a community level climate smart agriculture pilot that (i) trains small-holder rice farmers to document changes in agricultural practices that reduce GHG emissions and (ii) facilitate the higher income generation from better rice quality, market linkages and potential to sell the resulting carbon credits on the voluntary carbon market and (iii) promotes community development with gender mainstreaming for empowering women and the marginalized members of the community. 3. Build stakeholder and community capacity for scaling up the project and for transitioning to a broader array of sustainable funding sources over time. This includes the dissemination of project results by stakeholder advocates to policy makers for broader adoption of the approach. VLCRP worked and built up capacity for the DARD and their Extension System as well as more than 500 small farmer households in the 540 ha paddies in Phu Thuong Co-op, Phu Tan district, An Giang province and Kenh7b Co-op, Tan Hiep district, Kien Giang province. Over the period of 2.5 years, VLCRP completed a total of 11 crops in the two Co-ops. 3. Major results and achievements 84 The 1M6R low carbon rice farming protocol is built on and further refined from the 1 Must 5 Reductions farming techniques. (1 Must means must use certified seed; 5 reductions include the reduction of seed density, fertilizer, pesticide, water irrigation and post-harvest lost.) VLCRP has tested, piloted and applied a comprehensive farming package to the 1M5R techniques, including a crop-specific alternate wet dry water irrigation scheme and appropriate fertilizer application rates that have produced positive economic and environmental co-benefits. As such, the resulting VLCRP low carbon rice farming protocol has achieved a 6th reduction – a reduction of environmental pollution that includes green house gas emissions and thus has been renamed “1 Must 6 Reduction” low carbon rice farming technique. Since 2010, the 1M6R techniques have been further refined to prove its efficacy in terms of economic, environment and social development.Based upon the encouraging results and achievements from the last 2.5 years, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Kien Giang and An Giang have extended and scaled up the application of VLCRP’s 1M6R low carbon farming techniques to over 1,000 ha since the Winter-Spring crop of 2015, in their Large Scale Rice Production Model. They are also promoting the adoption of the 1M6R technique in other communes and districts of Tan Hiep and Phu Tan of Kien Giang and An Giang provinces. 3.1. Major results Over the last 11 crops in both An Giang and Kien Giang, the application of the 1M6R farming protocol have continuously delivered the triple wins of economic, environment and social development. These aspects are measured, verified and reported as following: a) Economic development and livelihood improvement for rice farmers Farmer’s incomes have increase from 5-60% through the reductions of input costs by reduce 50% seeds, 15-30% fertilizer, 30-40% chemical pesticide/herbicide, 40-50% water irrigation and 20% labor cost. On average, rice yield increase from 10% and net profit increase from 10- 15% per hectare as compared to the farmer’s conventional practices. b) Environment and Food Safety; Protection of Public Health, Water Resources and Ecological System By reducing chemical pesticide use, not only is production cost reduced, but this practice has helped to improve the quality and safety of the rice. VLCRP has collected rice samples randomly from its 1M6R model and the conventional practice model for laboratory test to measure the heavy metal and chemical residues. Results have showed that the rice from 1M6Rs met the WHO.standard food safety. The nitrate was found to be 4.97 -6.76mg/kg which is far lower than the allowed nitrate residues from fresh vegetable, drinking water and food for infant and mother in accordance with the WHO standard. Concentrations of Propiconazole, Tryciclazone, Acetamiprid, lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) were below detectable levels. When apply the 1M6R farming protocol, rice farmers have better opportunities to reduce their health risk hazard by reducing direct interactions with toxic chemical, and protect their ecological system including the useful insects and fish. Many farmers in the VLCRP project areas reported to the mid-term independent