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Climate Change 2016
October 27-29, 2016
Volume 7, Issue 9(Suppl)
J Earth Sci Clim Change
ISSN: 2157-7617 JESCC, an open access journal
conferenceseries
.com
October 24-26, 2016 Valencia, Spain
World Conference on
Climate Change
The values and recovery progress of floating rice-based agro-ecological systems for adaptation to
climate change in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta
Nguyen Van Kien
1,2
1
An Giang University, Vietnam
2
Australian National University, Australia
P
eople have a long tradition of living with the floods in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta by harvesting the floating rice. This
floating rice-based agro-ecological system exploited seasonal floods for rural livelihoods until 1980s. In 1974, there were
0.5 million hectares of the floating rice in the VMD, but by 2013, this dropped to 50 hectares (ha), found in Vinh Phuoc and
Luong An Tra communes of Tri Ton district in An Giang province. Recognition of the important ecological, economic and
cultural values of this floating rice-based agro-ecological system, Research Center for Rural Development (RCRD) of An
Giang University has co-designed with local farmers, private sectors and local authorities to initiate a series of research and
development outreach activities which aims to help rural communities to restore this valuable geneses as well as ecosystem
services for improving rural livelihoods and adaptation to climate change. After operating these research and development
activities for two years, we found that behaviours of different stakeholders have changed positively towards this recovery
activity. Policy makers recognized the opportunity costs of this system in comparison with intensification of rice, from two to
three crops, changed their attitudes toward profitability rather than production. Significantly, the market price of the floating
rice was improved by double, giving incentives for farmers to return to the floating rice. More importantly, this system allow
farmers to adapt well to floods and droughts because floating rice can elongate well with the flood condition, while farmers can
save water for irrigating upland crops thank to the thick layers of rice remaining straws. This paper provides the quantitative
economic and ecological values of the floating rice-based agro-ecological systems, describes the co-design participatory
processes of floating rice recovery in the Mekong Delta, and suggests avenue for adaptation to climate change in the future.
linhthuydhtl@gmail.comJ Earth Sci Clim Change 2016, 7:9(Suppl)
http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2157-7617.C1.028