Turn by-products into resources
After each rice harvest, instead of burning straw right in the fields as before, many farmers in Phuoc Thoi ward, Can Tho city collect straw to grow mushrooms. The rolls of yellow straw that were once considered discarded by-products now become raw materials for production, increasing income for people.
Ms. Vo Thi Xuan (Phuoc Thoi ward, Can Tho city) said that straw mushroom growing not only creates economic value but also helps farmers contribute to environmental protection. The use of straw after harvest limits the situation of burning fields, thereby reducing dust and greenhouse gas emissions. From the reality of production, Ms. Xuan and many farmers have seen the value of taking advantage of by-products right in the fields.
However, in the past 5 years, the weather in the Mekong Delta region has no longer been "smooth weather" as before. Erratic climate developments, sudden temperature differences between day and night, or prolonged intense heat waves, and unseasonal rain have caused mushroom yields and quality to decline sharply.
The difficulties Ms. Xuan and many mushroom growers are facing show that green transformation cannot only rely on the persistence and loneliness of farmers. For a model that both utilizes by-products and reduces emissions to stand firm against the impact of climate change, producers need more support in terms of technology, organization of production and output for products.
Also from the issues in the fields, the requirement to improve environmental protection policies and promote the circular economy is becoming increasingly urgent. In fact, the content of promoting recycling, reuse of waste and development of the circular economy is also an important content supplemented in the Draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Environmental Protection.
According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dinh Tho, Deputy Director of the Institute of Strategy and Policy for Agriculture and Environment (Ministry of Agriculture and Environment), in the circular economy model, by-products of one production stage can become inputs of another process. For example, straw can be used to grow mushrooms, produce organic fertilizers, bio-coal or serve animal husbandry; livestock waste can create biogas and organic fertilizers; crop by-products can return to improve the soil...
This approach both reduces waste to the environment, saves inputs and creates more value and livelihoods for rural areas. From the reality recorded in the locality, Dr. Vu Duy Hoang - Deputy Director of the Center for Ecological Agriculture and Vocational Training, Lecturer of the Faculty of Agriculture, Vietnam National University of Agriculture - believes that circular economic development does not necessarily have to start from large projects or modern technology. Each locality needs to identify potential by-product sources, capable of creating value and suitable for production conditions as well as the organizational capacity of cooperatives, instead of applying the same model everywhere.
Dr. Vu Duy Hoang hopes that the Draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Environmental Protection will continue to improve mechanisms and policies and create stable motivation to promote science and technology investment, strengthen coordination between the State, businesses, scientists, cooperatives and farmers. In particular, producers need to be placed in the center and directly benefit from policies as well as the results of the green transformation process.
To bring green transformation benefits to farmers
According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dinh Tho, the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection has laid the foundation for the application of many modern management tools such as greenhouse gas inventory, circular economy or carbon market. However, the implementation process also shows that many contents need to be adjusted to suit the new context.
Many regulations in the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection were built when the local government apparatus was still organized according to a 3-level model, while it has now shifted to a 2-level model. This requires a review of the authority, decentralization mechanism and management responsibilities between the Central Government and localities.
In addition, many new policies on the carbon market, carbon credits, digital transformation in environmental management or circular economic development have been formed in recent years but have not been fully updated.
According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dinh Tho, in the field of agriculture, these changes are of particular importance, because agriculture is one of the fields with great potential to reduce emissions. Not only forestry has the ability to absorb carbon, but rice cultivation, animal husbandry and aquaculture can also create a source of carbon credits if production is organized according to appropriate procedures.
Reality has proven this when in the Mekong Delta, the Project to develop 1 million hectares of high-quality, low-emission rice is gradually bringing positive results. Many localities such as: Can Tho, Dong Thap, An Giang... have applied interspersed flood-drying methods, reduced the amount of sown seeds, used fertilizer reasonably and managed post-harvest straw.
Having introduced and guided farmers on low-emission rice growing models, Dr. Vu Duy Hoang assessed that farmers and cooperatives today are quite open to green production solutions and emission reduction with new techniques. What they are most concerned about is whether that solution is suitable for production conditions, maintains productivity and creates economic efficiency.
Initially, many households were still concerned because they had to change farming habits and worried that new production techniques would affect productivity and income. But when directly participating in implementation and witnessing the results in their own fields, they had faith and proactively maintained and replicated the model. I believe that green transformation will happen faster when farmers see benefits right in their own fields. When economic benefits go hand in hand with environmental benefits, transformation will become a natural need from production practice, not just a requirement from policy" - Dr. Vu Duy Hoang said.
According to experts, the ultimate goal of green transformation is not only to reduce emissions but also to improve production efficiency, protect resources and improve livelihoods for farmers. Therefore, emission reduction solutions need to be chosen in a direction that both ensures environmental efficiency and brings practical benefits to producers.
