In light of the recent post on Agricultural Mitigation, the IFAD-IFPRI Partnership blog is hosting a virtual dialogue on the following two topic questions.
- What are the key obstacles in Vietnam for agricultural climate change mitigation?
- What should the government do to promote agricultural mitigation?
Both or either questions may be answered at any time. Please share with us your knowledge, opinions and perspectives so we may collectively engage in a fruitful discussion of the real and potential challenges and opportunities that Vietnam faces in its struggle to adapt to climate changes. For more information, read the IFAD-IFPRI Partnership Vietnam country brief.
IFAD-IFPRI Strategic Partnership Program 
What should the government do to promote agricultural mitigation?
The Government should focus on best practices that enable agriculture to produce more food, waste less, and have a better access to the market. Specific interventions can be (i) “Better soil and nutrient management; (ii) improving water use; (iii) strengthening pest and disease control; (iv) promoting healthy ecosystems; (v) good management of genetic resources; (vi) reducing methane generation in rice farming; (vii) livestock production and efficiency; and (viii) improving supply chains” (FAO).
National policies should pay attend to build resilient skills for most vulnerable farmer groups. Farming must be more resilient to disruptive events like floods and droughts. In other words, agriculture’s management and use of natural resources need to be improved.
Agricultural sector should find its ways to reduce its environmental impacts without compromising food security and rural development.
Community-based adaptation and mitigation on climate change should be publicly raised and voiced out.
How to combat Climate Change ?
“Fighting climate change is the responsibility of large enterprises and industries. Individuals – especially poor farmers – can do little to participate in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions”. Wrong !
We well know that, agriculture contributes significantly to GHG emissions and about 18%, mostly from nitrous oxide emissions from fertilized soils and untreated fresh manure. In Vietnam, despite many progresses in fertilizer use, the coefficient of nitrogen fertilizer use is only 35-45%, that of phosphorus and potassium fertilizer is about 50-60%, resulting in large amounts of chemical fertilizers being lost to leaching, erosion, volatilization and fixation. This does not only cause fertilizer waste but also leads to the danger of environmental pollution. “It is estimated that, in Vietnam only, the annual loss of nitrogen fertilizer accounts for about 1-1.2 million tons of urea-equivalent fertilizer- Vietnam news 2002, Dr.Nguyen Van Bo – Association of Soil sciences”. This is both an economic disaster as well an as environmental one.
And in Vietnam nearly 80% of households are still linked to agricultural production. Moreover, the current population growth and the rapid rate of urbanization increases scarcity of agricultural land and result in even more intensive agricultural practices.
Among the popular but environmentally unsustainable practices are the burning of agricultural waste, the over usage of chemical fertilisers, the discharge of untreated animal waste and the usage of fossil fuel for cooking.
However, in some of Vietnam’s provinces, farmers are embracing new practices that will significantly reduce their carbon footprint (i.e. the amount of greenhouse gas they produce). And they do it with enthusiasm as this new technology brings them many benefits: From manure to bio-fuel, from waste to bio-fertiliser !
Bio-digester systems, which convert animal and human waste into biogas and digested slurry are not new. But it took a local Vietnamese NGO (the Center for Rural Communities Research & Development (CCRD) to come up with a simplified design specifically tailored to the context of Vietnamese farming households.
First, the latrine and pigsty are connected to an underground sealed tank where waste is digested by bacteria. The results are a clean and odourless bio-fuel that is used for cooking and slurry that can be used for the second phase of the process.
All available agricultural leftover material (mostly rice husk and stalks) is then composted with the slurry and a locally-produced enzymatic accelerant to become top quality bio-fertiliser.
What’s in it for the farmers? It’s not all about saving the planet. Farmers must and do get immediate benefits.
– Free clean bio-fuel for cooking. This saves women and children precious time gathering wood and reduces the cost of buying coal. As an added bonus the kitchen area is free of smoke and noxious fumes.
– Reducing chemical fertilisers brings a significant financial benefit and bio-fertilisers actually improves the soil conditions allowing more consistent yields over the years.
Finally, the time spent cleaning the pigsty is reduced and animals can thrive in a cleaner environment.
What’s in it for the planet? Each bio-digester system will produce 2,500 m3/day of bio-fuel thus saving 4,500 tons/year of wood fuel (and reducing CO2 emissions by 5,670 tons). In addition, each household can produce 5 tons of bio-fertilizer per year.
What’s so different with this project? Many elements are innovative: the model, the marketing approach and the added benefits.
– THE MODEL. Most other family-scale models of bio-digestion plants are complicated, both to build and to operate. They require high construction quality made even more complicated by the fact that the tank has a spherical dome. Over time, a hardened scum forms at the top of the material inside the tank. This slowly reduces the amount of gas that can escape and requires yearly cleaning and recoating of the digestion chamber.
The model developed by CCRD is based on a standard rectangular tank, which all masons in Vietnam know how to build. Because of it’s flat top, the pigsty and latrine can be installed directly on top. An innovative but simple design eliminates the formation of scum and the yearly cleaning process.
– THE APPROACH. Vietnamese farmers are savvy entrepreneurs. They want (don’t we all) to improve their living conditions and escape poverty. Why would their dream include a system that is being promoted as a charity item for “the poorest of the poor”? Or as a tool to “save the environment”? Better to emulate other farmers who have made it successfully.
This is why CCRD has chosen a market-oriented approach, positioning its product as an advantageous cost-benefit improvement for farming households. It’s worth the investment and will pay for itself in just a few years. Direct subsidies are replaced by an “early bird promotion” for the first clients.
Another interesting approach is that of creating local micro-enterprises. Teams of technicians are trained to become self-sustaining service providers. It’s an off-farm job creation initiative at the lowest possible level. Just what Vietnam needs in order to keep some of its workforce in rural areas.
– THE ADDED BENEFITS. The profitability of the system is greatly enhanced by using the output (the digested slurry) to produce tons of bio-fertiliser.
The farmers are doing their part in the fight against climate change.
Recommendations: MARD cannot have enough source and use all its administrative structure (including Extension system) for GHG emissions mitigation relevant to Agricultural sector. It must be considered for ecouraging the contribution of CSOs and CBOs in a synergy ! Let’s mobilize them to combat Climate Change !
What are the key obstacles in Vietnam for agricultural climate change mitigation?
1. Almost all agricultural support programs have not actually addressed and tackled with key issues of sustainable agriculture. Facts have shown that quite a few of hybrid varieties are still in use leading to great fluctuation and heavy dependence, chemical fertilizers and insecticides are intensively used and cultivation methods are still backward. Furthermore, those programs are not strategic, which can be blamed for the limited positive impacts on farmers’ life.
2. Technical assistance through agricultural extensional systems has not reached many farmers, especially the poor and the ones living in remote areas. They do not have many opportunities to access modern technologies, information and experiences.
3. Supporting measures provided by agricultural extensional systems have not actually encouraged farmers to find out solutions to their own problems. For example, in what way farmers can manage their own rice varieties and in what way they can cooperate with each other and manage the production activities.
4. Farmers’ way of thinking is still fragmented and lacks of cooperation. Moreover, their capacity on climate change and knowledge about production, market access and legal environment is quite limited.
5. Farmers nowadays do not want their children to continue agricultural production due to fluctuation and changes in land use purposes. Meanwhile, sustainable agriculture requires the farmers should play a central role in the process.
6. The cooperation and coordination between sectors, ministries and programs is not tight enough to deal with climate change adaptation and mitigation. It requires macro coordination and the participation of all members in the society.
What should the government do to promote agricultural mitigation?
The Vietnamese government should work out sound measures in response to the afore-mentioned obstacles. The policies should be detailed and appropriate at grassroots level in which the farmers play a central role. The concentration should be put on the aspects of organization, cooperation and systematic methods rather than technical issues in climate change mitigation.
1. What are the key obstacles in Vietnam for agricultural climate change mitigation?
Decreased agricultural profits and uncultivated land because of changes in precipitation regime and wind regime
Failure of crops and uncultivated land because of droughts
Decreased agricultural profits because of increased demand for investment in pesticides and chemical fertilizers
Decreased agricultural profits or failure of crops because pestilent insects are increasing both in volume and frequency
Decreased agricultural profits because of soil erosion and pollution caused by the overuse of chemicals
2. What should the Government do to promote agricultural climate change mitigation?
Adequate information and communications with easily understandable methods about the causes of Climate Change and its impacts on agriculture should be provided to farmers
Policies to protect soil quality should be worked out
Policies on reducing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides with cheap and organic fertilizers should be introduced
Mechanisms for farmers to experiment new varieties on small scale should be encouraged
Reducing the area of economic forests with one type of short-term trees as per the directive 6611
1. What are the key obstacles in Vietnam for agricultural climate change mitigation?
+ Vietnamese farmers have little knowledge about climate change, which makes them concerned and passive when confronting natural disasters. They are not fully aware of the significance of climate change adaptation. For example, people think that “natural disaster prevention” can hardly be realized, so they do little to respond to natural disasters.
+ Nowadays, hybrid varieties of high productivity have been commonly grown. They require good growing conditions and can hardly resist to harsh weather conditions, especially in mountainous areas.
+ Quite a few advanced technologies have been applied in production activities. However, due attention has not been paid to natural and social characteristics, which makes traditional cultivation knowledge eroded.
+ Intensive cultivation has been accelerated. However, farmers neglect enrichment of soil leading to impoverished cultivation conditions.
+ Heavy rain and flooding from watershed and forest degradation has contributed to soil erosion. In the long term, this influences on the livestocks supply and yield and productivity of cattle breeding sector.
2. What should the Government do to promote agricultural mitigation?
+ The Government should provide training so that people can know that climate change is caused by human activities. As such, they will be aware that climate change’s impact can be mitigated and adapted.
+ Local varieties should be reserved
+ Knowledge of traditional cultivation should be preserved
+ Whenever new technologies are applies, attention should be paid to local conditions + Forest protection should be regarded as a priority to protect deltas as well.
1. What are the key obstacles in Vietnam for agricultural climate change mitigation?
On cropping:
– The area of arable land is on the decrease due to sea level rise, salt intrusion, coastal and river erosion and droughts.
– Yield and productivity is on the decrease because flooding, droughts, pest and diseases have continuously increased as a result of higher average temperature.
– Rural area is now facing shortage of labor force. This can be attributed to the unsustainable agriculture and losses in production activities, which forces young people to rush to urban area to seek employment opportunities.
On cattle breeding
– Cattle-breeding sector has seen a considerable plunge in profit as the demand for installing cooling system is higher and the animal feed price is now rocketing.
On animal husbandry
– The area for animal husbandry activities has been remarkably narrowed due to sea level rise. The cost to prevent against epidemic diseases and pumping is much higher due to increased average temperature. Crop failure happens as a result of extreme weather phenomena.
2. What should the Government do to promote agricultural mitigation?
On mitigation measures
– Implement the Strategy on planting new forest
– Implement the Strategy on forest protection
– Implement and extend the model of System of rice intensification (SRI)
– Encourage the use of organic fertilizers in agricultural activities
On adaptation measures
– Implement the action plan to respond to climate change at village and commune level
– Implement the national strategy on natural disaster prevention at village and commune level
– Implement insurance in agriculture sector
– Plan agricultural activities in the direction of goods production, specialized cultivation and large-scale production
1. What are the key obstacles in Vietnam for agricultural climate change mitigation?
The area of agricultural land has been gradually narrowed as a result of the current development trend. The farmer has used to applying new agricultural technology, growing high yield varieties, over-using insecticides to fight against pest and diseases and step by step neglecting traditional cultivation methods and indigenous varieties.
Technology development is accompanied with the development of chemical companies. Upon getting bigger profit, these firms provide a great support to the Government and farmers in terms of capital, varieties and insecticides, which indirectly create heavier dependence of assistance recipient on them. Farmers have been gradually deprived of the activeness in their own production activities.
2. What should the Government do to promote agricultural mitigation?
Following are some recommendations for the Government
– Limit the dependence on technology and chemical companies
– Reduce and even stop the use of hybrid varieties and genetic modification
– Encourage and provide support to farmers to revigorate and preserve local varieties
– Provide output support for organic products
– System of rice intensification is an effective method which should be extended in other localities
1. What are the key obstacles in Vietnam for agricultural climate change mitigation?
Subjective difficulties
– The habit of water rice cultivation has greatly contributed to the increase of greenhouse emission gas.
– The lack of knowledge and poor awareness of climate change impacts caused by agricultural production activities. As such, it is hard to find safe and appropriate adaptation measures.
– Immediate profit is regarded as top priority at the expense of other long-term benefits.
– People are not fully aware of protecting the environment.
– People are heavily dependent on chemical fertilizers.
Objective difficulties
– Climate change is happening more severely.
Extreme weather phenomena such as heat waves, acute cold spell, droughts, water scarcity, storms and cyclones are intensified in terms of frequency and intensity.
– Pest and disease on crops and animals tend to be more prevalent and unpredictable.
– Sea level rise has been reducing the area of arable land, especially water rice growing area.
2. What should the government do to promote agricultural mitigation?
– Enhance communication activities on the mass media and some other means of communication, for example, posters, videos and forums to improve people’s awareness of climate change and natural disaster prevention.
– Improve people’s awareness of climate change, environmental protection and introduce mitigation measures towards extreme weather phenomena which are now exerting negative impacts on people’s lives
– Accelerate effective forest planting including bio-forest diversification and avoiding over-exploitation of forest
– Encourage research and development of technical rice cultivation measures to reduce greenhouse emission gas
– Provide weather forecast tools
– Implement the national strategy on natural disaster mitigation at village and commune level.
1. What are the key ostacles in Vietnam for agricultural climate change mitigation?
– Majority peoples, especially farmers and extentionists, also many local officers and agriculture policy makers do not undertand that agriculture also contribute to global warming
– Vietnam wants to intensify rice production for domestic use of increasing population, for export and maintaining 2rd biggest rice exporter.
– But rice production increase would also increase methane emissions
– Increasing use and over use of chemical fertilizers and pesticide leading to increasing soil pollution and N2O emission
– Ineffective management of irrigation
– More rice result in more agriculture residues, and firing those produce more green house gasses (CH4, N2O and CO2)
– Increase Animal husbandry and its waste will also increase producing green house gasses
– Deforestration causes CO2 emission
– Illegal logging decreases carbon stock
2. What should the government do to promote agricultural mitigation?
– Raise public awareness about agriculture contributing to climate change as producing green house gasses
– Invest in Agriculture research for advanced rice cultivation with less seeds, less water, less chemical but the same or more productivity
– support small farmers to be rice seed preservaters and self selected rice seed producers –
– Improve irrigation management
– Invest in the program to introduce and support small farmers to build and use biogas system
– Make sure of participatory REDD+ program implementation and benefit sharing
– Support community forestry management and sustainable NTFP programs
1. What are the key obstacles in Vietnam for agricultural climate change mitigation?
Up to now, there is have been limited official report on the percentage of greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector of Vietnam and also, following the UNFCCC, Vietnam is not in the list of countries obliged to reduce emissions, therefore, climate change mitigation in general and climate change mitigation from the agriculture sector in particular has not been the priority of Vietnam.
The awareness and knowledge of participants in agricultural production about climate change and climate change mitigation is very limited. Agricultural extension officers who support local residents don’t have sufficient knowledge and have not had the chance to practice techniques to mitigate climate change in agricultural production. Hence, climate change mitigation has not been officially combined and integrated into current agricultural production.
Most farming households are very poor, whereas the initial expense for emission reduction technique (e.g. building biogas tanks) is very high in comparison with their income. Thus, they are not willing to invest money in new techniques; they just focus on how to increase productivity and income.
Almost all Vietnamese farmers cultivate following the traditional methods (including submerged fields, misuse of chemical fertilizer, pesticide and insecticide) which result in greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, there are several provinces adopting new techniques of cultivation to reduce emissions. However, there are still lots of difficulties in replicating these models due to insufficient awareness of people and lack of instructors and communication staff.
2. What should the government do to promote agricultural mitigation?
Government should do:
• Make a clear plan with budget for agricultural mitigation
• Cooperate and coordinate with CSOs/NGOs in developing and disseminating guidance and instructing farmers on how to apply new techniques for agricultural mitigation.
• Research and replicate good models on agriculture mitigation.
• Build capacities on climate change in general, and agriculture mitigation specifically, for agricultural extension officers and set up appropriate training programs for all levels.
1. What are the key obstacles in Vietnam for agricultural climate change mitigation?
Rural agriculture contributes 18 % to total emission and total amount of emission from husbandry waste is 13,5 million tones CO2 per year.
Recently, together with many Vietnamese NGOs, The Center for Rural Communities Research & Development (CCRD) belonging to the Vietnam Gardening Association(VACVINA) ) is very successful in the application of biogas technology and biofertilizer, which show high effectiveness in emission reduction. VACVINA’s Hybrid Technology Biodigester with automatically scum control”.
Biogas application is a consolidated solution with multi- objectives to reduce greenhouse gas emission. In particular: reduce emission more than 5.4 tones of CO2/ year/1 biogas digester. Since 2002, there have been up to over 10,000 biodigesters, which contribute emission reduction by 54,000 tones. The production and use of bio- fertilizer, make full use of slurry from biogas digester can discourage the use of chemical fertilizer, increase plant productivity. CCRD has been supported in production of 2,000 tones of bio- fertilizer, reduce emission about 200 tones of NPK/year.
During the implementation, we perceive some difficulties faced by Vietnamese agriculture in climate change mitigation in general and in the application of biological technology in production and bio-fertilizer utility are:
* Common difficulties:
• The excessive use of chemical fertilizer and plant protection drugs (farmers)
• Local people and even authority awareness of climate change and greenhouse gas (GHG) is still limited.
• Agricultural production towards a sustainable agriculture has not been conducted in many location nation-wide: cultivation methodology, production scale and model:
• There has not have the policies and guidance on how to mitigate climate change in agriculture: Up to now, there is only National Target Program (NTP) and climate change scenario, currently, provinces and sectors are setting up the action plans.
• The involvement of VNGOs and civil society in general is still limited in national level program/ project.
• Bio-gas: People awareness of environmental pollution and greenhouse gas emission is low.
• Habit on traditional animal breeding
• Lack of capital for bio-digester building
• High initial cost; commercialization has not developed yet; lack of diversity in product; lack of finance to expand the models.
* Bio fertilizer: Cattle manure become less popular, products are competitive; people’s access to information is limited and the distribution channel is insufficient.
2. What should the government do to promote agricultural mitigation?
• Based on the assignment given by the government, together with Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development should develop and act as governing ministry together with civil society organizations (and private sector) to set up specific the program/ project relating to mitigation in agriculture sector.
•
Government should generate mechanism and opportunities for VNGOs and civil society organization who have experience in implementation/ intervention in climate change mitigation to participate in this process (develop proposal, implementation and monitoring or in form of services provision).
• Organizing activities at national level to introduce and disseminate successful models, projects implemented by LNGOs in climate change mitigation in agriculture and then planning for duplicate the models as well as provide funding.
• Government, civil society and private sector should have closer and more specific linkage and cooperation on climate change mitigation in agriculture.
■What are the key obstacles in Vietnam for agricultural climate change mitigation?
Defenitely to say that agriculture production contributing global warming as many study showed. So what is better alternative for using the wetland? Agriculture is still going on as usual from thousand years.
In practice, the scientist, extensionists are transferring and the farmer are implementing many mitigation measures such as: alleying cropping, building the green hedgrerows to prevent soil erosion, reducing soil, carbon, and nutrient losses from both onside and offside that causing deterioration of water bodies with associated volatilization and emission; Using of crop residuce to the crop; improve vareities to enhance photosynthetis to cacthup more CO2; and recently we transferring the farmer how to implement application of biochar from rice husk and rice straw to sequest carbon in the soil for event hundred years, implementation of alternative wet and dry irrigation to save water and reduce CH4 emission. Especially SRI is one of the new approach to implement.
However, many techniques have not been well implemented because of
– The farmer is not fully understand the efficientcy
– The different is not enought to make farmer interest (the easiest way that farmer very interesting for many years upto now is changing of new variety, immediately increase yield)
– The involvement of goverment, management levels
… to be continue
■What should the government do to promote agricultural mitigation?
■What should the government do to promote agricultural mitigation?
As many techniques have been studied and recommended by scientists and government as IPM, 3 reductions 3 gains, 1 must 5 reductions, and especially SRI has been recognized as the good approach for sustainable agriculture. However, these techniques are still implemented at the research and demonstration scale. Climate change will be mitigated when all of these techniques are implemented properly.
As said above, the mitigation measures have being found and some of them may be available for implementing. What the government should do now is to keep going to find for the better mitigation systems and to implement the update mitigation measures. For implementing, some remarks should be taken into account:
– There is must be an agreement among the stakeholders involving the techniques, for example the government, agriculture management at all levels, extension, administration and farmers, especially the local administrative (district and commune levels) to have farmer solve any constraints such as irrigation systems, irrigation schemes…
– Master plan and land use planning is very important to make favorable condition suitable for the new techniques to be implemented
– Set the range of priorities to make the most successful demonstration sites
– Training for the farmer must be consider as the prerequisite
– Demonstration is also needed association with training to make sure that the farmer can learn by both ways training and visiting
– Gradually develop carbon market that the farmer can joint and they expected to get benefit from their mitigation measures
Question 1. What are the key obstacles in Vietnam for agricultural climate change mitigation?
Climate change mitigation in agriculture is reducing greenhouse gas emissions in agricultural production. Vietnamese agriculture focuses on 3 main sectors: farming, animal husbandry and fishery; therefore, reducing greenhouse gas emissions in every sector, every object of production, every stage in producing and processing is different.
Difficulties in climate change mitigation in Vietnamese agriculture are:
1. Agricultural production is mostly conducted in farming households at small-scale.
In Vietnam, currently, more than 10 million households are working on agriculture sector and mostly small-scale production. This is the most important characteristics because it determines the technical and non- technical solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so that it is appropriate for households, small-scale production and accepted and adopted by farmers in practice… It should be acknowledged that almost 70% of Vietnamese population are working in agriculture sector; therefore, climate change mitigation in Vietnamese agriculture should be the action of nearly 40 million people.
2. Household-scale agricultural production in Vietnam is very diverse.
Each Vietnamese farming household is a complex and diverse agricultural production system. An officer in Ha Tinh said: “A farming household may have nearly 10 plots of farming fields, raise over 10 types of animals, plant over 10 types of crops”.. This is also the difficulty in climate change mitigation at household scale because the production scale is very small, not to mention the techniques and the initial investment for these solutions. To poor households, especially those in rural areas, the problem is even more complicated when the economy is self-sufficient with lots of difficulties.
3. The technical solution for climate change mitigation in Vietnamese agriculture is still vague.
A lot of information and scenarios about Climate Change have been provided in training materials and courses on Climate Change. However, the knowledge and information is somehow far from reality; there is still no specific and feasible solution for farmers, especially for small-scale production. From the vague and macro situation, farmers do not know how to mitigate climate change in their production processes even if they want to. According to the results of the quick survey on small–scale, sustainable agriculture conducted by PED’s (Center for Population and Environmental Development) (sponsored by AAV, October 2010), farmers can sense climate change through unusual weather and its negative impacts on their lives and production. However, their knowledge and their practices in climate change mitigation do not change much though the slogan “Working together for Climate Change mitigation” is quite popular mainly thanks to public media.
4. Non technical solutions are not specific and not consistent with the technical solutions.
To successfully apply a technical solution into real life, especially into production activities of farmers, we need a process in which non-technical solutions (supporting policies, transferring, training, communications, convenience, costs and benefits) plays a critical role. It could be disappointing if we expect to find the non-technical solution for each technical solution so that farmers can apply to reduce Climate Change’s impacts. As a result, no matter how good the technical solution is, it will be very hard for it to come into reality without the support of non-technical solutions.
In order to mitigate climate change, over the past 3 years, PED has implemented the project “Developing wood-saving cooking stoves following market-oriented mechanism” in Thanh Hoa, Thai Nguyen (sponsored by ETC) and the activity “Developing organic fertilizers following market-oriented mechanism” in resettlement areas of Ban Ve hydro-power station (sponsored by OHK) and showed that farmers need appropriate solutions not the modern ones and in order to be successful, technical solutions must be accompanied with non-technical ones.
5. Agricultural officers and expansionists have not paid due attention to transferring to farmers CC mitigation solutions and the transfer does not show effectiveness.
According to the results of PED’s research (10/2010), agricultural officers and extensionists also just have general and vague understanding about climate change. They can mention climate change many times but when it comes to detail (specific solutions for climate change mitigation in planting rice and corn, raising pigs, chicken, fish, planting forests…) climate change becomes “the global responsibility, the responsibility of State and the Government”.
The transfer of climate change solutions to farmers is very few and ineffective because it just stops at “Raising awareness of climate change” level.
Question 2. What should the Government do to promote Climate Change mitigation in agriculture?
1. The Government should have a National Action Plan on climate change mitigation in agriculture, farmers and rural areas, which focus not only on agricultural production but also on daily life activities of farmers such as: bio-gas, wood- saving cooking stoves, treatment for agricultural- forestry- aquatic by- products…
2. Ministry of Education and Training, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development should include the subject of “Climate change mitigation in agriculture – forestry- pisciculture” in the curriculum of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery universities, colleges and secondary schools.
3. The National Center for Agricultural and Fishery Extension should compose the national materials on “Climate Change mitigation in agriculture” for farmers in small- scale agricultural production with specific solutions for each object and process of production as well as TOT training for the whole agricultural- fishery extension system. The main principle is that one practical action speaks louder than a dozen of words and theories.
4. Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development should organize contests, sponsor activities at central level and provincial level for the projects conducting researches and implementing CC mitigation solutions towards farmers and agricultural-forestry- fishery production.
5. Media agencies at national and provincial level should have a weekly program of “Climate change mitigation in Agriculture- Farmers’ actions” in television, radio and newspapers which farmers have access to.