Farmers in the Ca Mau Peninsula, Vietnam’s biggest exporter of shrimp and prawns, are enjoying a good rice harvest on shrimp farming land. One farmer reported easrning more than USD 6,000 from his 2-hectare farm.
The rice-shrimp model is considered a sustainable agricultural practice adaptable to climate change. It is also deemed environmentally sustainable because it requires lesser fertilizers and chemicals in rice production.
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More on food system diversification:
Reducing pesticides and increasing crop diversification offer ecological and economic benefits for farmers—a case study in Cambodian rice fields
Since the Green Revolution in the 1960s, rice agroecosystems in Southeast Asia are mostly associated with intensified rice monoculture. The trend of intensified rice production and increasing harvested areas is associated with increasing agrochemical inputs like fertilizers and pesticides. The importance of pesticides has dramatically increased in recent decades since many farmers have increased their pesticide use as they believe it is the only way to prevent pest outbreaks.
However, pesticides can be harmful not only for the targeted rice pests but also to the environment and human well-being, since pesticides are often the first choice for pest management. To improve the stated situation, habitat management as a form of biological control has increasingly gained interest.
One promising approach to increase landscape diversity and to counteract pesticide inputs is ecological engineering (EE). EE is associated with habitat management and aims to design ecosystems in a sustainable way that benefits both humans and the environment.
Mending Asia’s broken rice bowls
Rich in natural resources, including fertile land, abundant water, and a wealth of biodiversity, coastal deltas across the tropics serve many nations as “breadbaskets” or “rice bowls.” Such is the case for Asia’s Ganges and Mekong River deltas, two of the world’s largest. Providing livelihoods for rural people, they also produce nutritious food (rice, fruit, fish, and shrimp) for hundreds of millions of consumers.
Yet, both deltas face a wide array of threats—from storm surges to water pollution. Like other tropical deltas, the Ganges and Mekong are particularly vulnerable to these hazards because of high population density, entrenched poverty, and heavy dependence on natural resources for livelihoods. Arguably, these deltas have neared a tipping point, beyond which damage to key ecological services will become irreparable, fraying the fabric of rural life and adding momentum to already high levels of outmigration.
Global rice program to explore boosting Asia’s rice-based agriculture through crop diversification
The CGIAR Research Program (CRP) on rice agri-food systems (RICE) is developing a framework for partnerships that will work to intensify and diversify Asia’s rice-based farming systems.
Under its Sustainable Farming Systems project, RICE will develop and deliver options that will improve farm livelihoods and rural diets while minimizing the environmental footprint of rice-based farming systems in potential target regions across Asia. To achieve this, the program held a workshop on 28-29 March in Bangkok to develop a framework for partnerships with other agri-food system CRPs, CGIAR Centers, and national and international institutes to improve farm livelihoods and rural diets, while minimizing their environmental footprint, through novel rice-based farming systems . Potential target regions are eastern India, Myanmar, southern Bangladesh, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
