The Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) is calling for an investment of nearly USD1 billion for projects to respond to climate change, one official said.

Climate change causes serious drought in several agricultural land areas in Vietnam

The message was announced by Dinh Vu Thanh, Deputy Director of MARD’s Department of Science, Technology and Environment, at a seminar on the issue, held this morning, September 10, in Hanoi.

According to Thanh, agriculture contributed the most (43%) to greenhouse gas emissions in Vietnam, the majority of which comes from water rice cultivation, agricultural land use and animal breeding.

Between 2008 and 2012, the agricultural sector applied several measures to adapt to climate change and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, including the application of Vietnam Good Agricultural Practice (VietGAP) in agro-forestry and fisheries production.

Other measures were used to adjust crop timelines and crop varieties and develop a model to combine water rice cultivation with shrimp breeding in the Mekong Delta region.

The sector has dedicated 3.8 million hectres of land for rice cultivation to ensure national food security.

Biogas has been widely applied in the animal breeding industry. To date, around 500,000 biogas works have been built nationwide, including 170,000 MARD-funded works. VietGAP has been applied in the animal breeding industry as well.

In order to prevent and mitigate natural disasters, MARD has mapped out anti-flooding plans for big cities like HCM City, Hanoi, Haiphong, Can Tho and Ca Mau.

During the implementation of coastal dyke re-inforcement programmes from Quang Ninh to Qang Nam and from Quang Ngai to Kien Giang provinces, more attention was paid to climate change consequences including the potential rise of the level of sea water.

Many projects that responded to climate change were implemented during the 2008-2012 period with a combined investment of around USD567.7 million.

These projects have received funding from several international organisations such as the World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), U.S. Agency for International Development, along with the governments of Australia, Germany and Norway.

Despite these efforts, several problems remain, including, modest funding compared to the practical capital needed, weak capacity in realising projects funded by international organisations and sluggish and inefficient implementation.

There is also the lack of a legal framework and a lack of proper attention by the country’s leaders to this issue.

Vietnam aims to lower greenhouse gas emissions by agriculture by 20% by 2020, equivalent to 18.87 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2e).

As part of the effort to realise the target, MARD is calling for investment in many projects for the 2013-2015 period which should have a combined investment of around USD 935.5 million.

Of the total, programmes to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions are estimated to need between USD30 million and USD40 million during the period.