RICE is a contentious issue. The recent hike in world price has rattled markets. Price control of local rice has created havoc for the country.
Some unscrupulous businesses took advantage by blending local and imported rice selling as the higher price import. This became obvious when suddenly no local rice was seen in the market.
Consumers were the ones most affected. Rice farmers were not spared. Earlier, farmers complained about the delay in receiving seed materials, upsetting their planting schedule.
Even the best performing rice region of Sekinchan has reported yields declining. They used to report yields averaging 10 tonnes per hectare, but now lament a lower 4-5 tonnes.
They put the blame on several factors. Poor maintenance of the irrigation infrastructure is one. Untimely supply of seeds is another.
But experts say the uncontrolled use of chemicals is another minus point. As evidenced worldwide, the excessive use of chemicals has brought untold consequences on soil fertility.
Not to mention the release of nitrous oxide, a highly potent greenhouse gas. This explains why the deployment of organic fertilizers has gained momentum everywhere. Soil pollution is a major issue in the European Union (EU).
Major rice exporters like Vietnam have decided to act. They want to sustain their record of successfully turning rice into a big revenue earner. Vietnam's Mekong Delta hosts one of the largest rice farms in the world.
Rice farming has helped stave off famine since the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Rice isn't just staple food. It is considered a gift from the gods. Scenes of barges hauling mountains of the grain up and down the Mekong River are familiar sights.
Rice is unique. It cannot be integrated with other crops. Seedlings must be individually planted in flooded fields. It is hard work requiring a lot of labour and water that generates a lot of methane, a greenhouse gas.
It is a problem unique to growing rice, as inundated fields stop oxygen from entering the soil, creating the right conditions for methane-producing bacteria. Padi fields contribute eight per cent of all human-made methane in the atmosphere, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report.
That is why Vietnam is experimenting with a different method of irrigation known as alternate wetting and drying, or AWD. This requires less water than traditional farming since padi fields are not continuously submerged. They also produce less methane.
Drones are used to fertilize. It saves on labour costs. As experienced everywhere, no thanks to rural-urban migration, it is harder to find people to work the farms. The drone way ensures the precise application of fertilizers.
Too much fertilizer makes the soil release earth-warming nitrogen gases. Vietnam wants to move away from the practice of burning the left-over rice stubble, a major cause of air pollution.
Instead, it is collected for sale to companies that use it as livestock feed and for growing straw mushrooms. The new approach not only cuts costs, but also enables selling to European markets where customers are willing to pay a premium for organic rice.
Those methods use 40 per cent less rice seed and 30 per cent less water. Costs for pesticides, fertilizer and labour are lower. Vietnam targets growing high quality, low emission rice on one million hectares by 2030.
That would reduce production costs and increase farmers' profits by about US$600 million. Vietnam recognized early it had to reconfigure its rice sector to meet climate demand.
It was the largest rice exporter to sign a 2021 pledge to reduce methane emissions at the Glasgow COP meeting. The Mekong Delta, where 90 per cent of Vietnam's exported rice is farmed, is vulnerable to climate change.
A United Nations report in 2022 warned of heavier flooding in the wet season and droughts in the dry season. Scores of dams built upstream in China and Laos have reduced the river's flow and the amount of sediment that it carries downriver to the sea.
The sea level is rising and turning the river's lower reaches salty. And unsustainable levels of groundwater pumping and sand mining for construction have added to the problems.
If Malaysia aims to be a major rice player, we should emulate Vietnam.
The writer is a professor at the Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI Policy, UCSI University and Associate Fellow at the Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies, University of Malaya
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times
